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Greetings good citizen,

Looks like today’s top story is yet another slap in the face to intelligence of the public.

How much of this tripe are you expected to swallow?

Dow Average Surpasses Record High as Market Opens
By PETER EAVIS 39 minutes ago

Since a low point in March 2009, the Dow Jones industrial average has more than doubled, stunning even the most seasoned stock market watchers.

Economically speaking, the past five years have been a train wreck in slo-motion for the 99% while the >One Percent has waxed ever richer, largely due to their control of ‘paper wealth’.

The higher the Dow goes, the poorer YOU get!

The curious part is YOU aren’t expected to notice the connection here. You see the shares in your IRA/401k rising and you cheer up…until you realize you’re ‘running in place’.

Actually you continue to fall behind because the rise in share price only partly compensates for the fall in purchasing power YOU’RE being ‘hammered’ with.
(THEY have a lot more shares so they’re making up for the ‘shortage’ with ‘volume’.)

Did I mention that the >One Percent has declared ‘Open Season’ on peasants?

We have long ago determined that the stock market is utterly divorced from anything to do with the economy; yet our corporate owned media still uses it as ‘barometer’ of economic health.

And ‘Once upon a time’ it used to be.

But how do you make sense of the Dow’s record high in a job market plagued by record unemployment?

The ONLY answers are FUNNY MONEY and/or COOKED BOOKS!

(Probably a combination thereof.)

Which begs the question of how long can our civilization survive these levels of dishonesty?

We’re back to the old sod about the stock market remaining irrational longer than you can remain solvent. (BECAUSE all MONEY is FUNNY!)

Perhaps now would be a good time to address this distressing charge I keep pointing to.

Why bother working if money is largely ‘meaningless’?

And that would be to take away the ‘wrong message’ from my very true insistence that (all) money IS ‘funny’.

Money only works for the individual. Society itself doesn’t ‘need’ it. (In fact it has proven quite harmful in the, er, ‘wrong hands’.)

We all know that money or ‘representative wealth’ can be manipulated. This is especially true under legal systems that are purposefully designed NOT to prevent this.

Sure we have laws AGAINST ‘counterfeiting’ but we have a very poor definition of what is or isn’t ‘counterfeit’.

Today’s top headline is a classic example of ‘counterfeiting’ but we don’t have a mechanism under which to prosecute this kind of ‘manipulation’ of the money supply.

Raising share prices arbitrarily is NOT illegal…although it SHOULD BE.

UNDERSTAND there is no basis in reality for the Dow (now largely comprised of financial sector stocks) to be at the highest level in history.

Can you say, “Stick ‘em up!” good citizen?

Because you now NEED to earn more to obtain the same level of purchasing power you had before the Stock Market robbed you. Money the already too rich to spend it didn’t need in the first place.

So why are they taking it?

What answer do you arrive at good citizen?

Are you think along the lines of how they intend to flush as much of the surplus population down the toilet BEFORE it rises up and demands its fair share?

You really don’t need to look too far for a motive, the old ones work just fine.

Oddly, the old ones have become ‘preventative maintenance’ at this stage in the game.

The ‘relatively well-armed’ US civilian population is the ONLY factor keeping our new oligarchs in check.

If not for an armed citizenry, I’d be in a gulag right now…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Self-Extermination

Greetings good citizen,

The hard won holiday has ceased activity on the NYSE, sparing the world from its toxic influence.

Um, a (now long neglected) common theme of my posts is desperation. People will do unimaginable acts of violence if they are ‘desperate’ enough.

It underlies everything I predict, such is the incredible ‘power’ of desperation. Increasingly we are seeing the acts of the desperate and the cowardly corporate owned media is covering them up as the random acts of the ‘psychologically unstable’ (which the feckless capitalists abandoned shortly after ‘privatizing’ health care.) Yet another stick pin on the social map with St. Ronnie’s name on it!

It may be just me but ‘gold bugs’ are very practical when it comes to money (although they don’t get the ‘funny’ part, which sort of erases the appeal of their arguments regarding the ‘conservation of value’.)

Then we have guys like Mr. Hedges here, who have their fingers firmly on the pulse of civilization but take the same ‘wicked left’ when it comes to solving those problems.

How blind do you have to be to see that only the truly wicked claim to ‘speak for God’?

Republicans regularly go ‘on record’ as having had ‘personal dialog’ with ‘the supreme being.’

In most circles this is evidence of insanity but not in US politics where the feckless corporate owned media is involved!

But I, as usual, digress. Let us move forward with today’s offering:

Complex civilizations have a bad habit of destroying themselves. Anthropologists including Joseph Tainter in “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Charles L. Redman in “Human Impact on Ancient Environments” and Ronald Wright in “A Short History of Progress” have laid out the familiar patterns that lead to systems breakdown. The difference this time is that when we go down the whole planet will go with us. There will, with this final collapse, be no new lands left to exploit, no new civilizations to conquer, no new peoples to subjugate. The long struggle between the human species and the Earth will conclude with the remnants of the human species learning a painful lesson about unrestrained greed and self-worship.

“There is a pattern in the past of civilization after civilization wearing out its welcome from nature, overexploiting its environment, overexpanding, overpopulating,” Wright said when I reached him by phone at his home in British Columbia, Canada. “They tend to collapse quite soon after they reach their period of greatest magnificence and prosperity. That pattern holds good for a lot of societies, among them the Romans, the ancient Maya and the Sumerians of what is now southern Iraq. There are many other examples, including smaller-scale societies such as Easter Island. The very things that cause societies to prosper in the short run, especially new ways to exploit the environment such as the invention of irrigation, lead to disaster in the long run because of unforeseen complications. This is what I called in ‘A Short History of Progress’ the ‘progress trap.’ We have set in motion an industrial machine of such complexity and such dependence on expansion that we do not know how to make do with less or move to a steady state in terms of our demands on nature. We have failed to control human numbers. They have tripled in my lifetime. And the problem is made much worse by the widening gap between rich and poor, the upward concentration of wealth, which ensures there can never be enough to go around. The number of people in dire poverty today—about 2 billion—is greater than the world’s entire population in the early 1900s. That’s not progress.”

As Mr. Hedges indicates, there WILL be a ‘kill-off’ that will be disguised as a ‘Die-off’ (through gross mismanagement.)

Worse, the bought and paid for media will play it as a ‘natural disaster’…although the capitalist’s deliberate mismanagement of the economy has already begun the nutritional squeeze that will lead to the most devastating ‘global pandemic’ the world has ever seen.

Slip an unintended whoopsie in there (such as a real ‘natural disaster’) and it could spell extinction for our already ‘reproduction challenged’ base population.

But the ‘What if’ game is always a ‘dead-end’, we won’t ‘know’ until we get there.

Worse, the rhetoric surrounding climate change has taken on a harder edge, which is making it less credible. Global warming didn’t kill the dinosaurs and it sure isn’t going to kill us!

Which is to opine that we won’t ALL drown and sustainability (along with what it takes to get there) remains an ‘unknown’.

If we are to save ourselves from extinction (by self-extermination) we must manage the resources that remain to reduce desperation to an absolute minimum. (It wouldn’t hurt to put the brakes on the predatory capitalist's worship of gratuitous violence either! The hatred and the killing of your own species is a learned thing, it is NOT natural.)

The article misses another important point and that has been the cessation of all ‘forward scientific advance’ to preserve the ‘patents’ (profitability) of past discoveries.

Again, we need to refocus on the definition of ‘progress’ as the benefit reaped by all mankind from discovery and research rather than the imaginary benefit reaped by a few over the rest of us.

So we have it that stagnation, driven by self-interest, has resulted in creeping ‘desperation' that is shredding the fabric of our civilization…so ‘a few’ can be ‘rich’.

When true progress makes us ALL rich!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Useful

Greetings good citizen,

Once again we find ourselves on the cusp of that relic of the New Deal formerly referred to as ‘the weekend.’

We still call them weekends but the week no longer ‘ends’ for the vast majority of us. For the unemployed the weekend represents two bad days to prospect for a job despite the best chance of finding work being in the 24/7 service/retail sector…where it is impossible to get forty hours, never mind forty-one.

So, yeah, the unemployed usually suspend their search for work on Saturday and Sunday because they retain hope that their new job will provide them with those two days off.

Call it ‘tradition’ but we have the Sabbath built into our psyches. (The fact that one is Jew and the other Christian is of no consequence, we have ‘become accustomed’ to having those two days off.

Ironically, our brave new world seldom provides ‘days off’ period.

Some of us are expected to report to work seven days a week but only for a few hours a day (usually ‘peak time’.)

So you only work 28 hours but you have to go back & forth 14 times to get even that little bit!

And you don’t have a ‘day off’…

Now, if you only work four hours out of twenty-four you have most of every day off BUT, in the relentless world of retail, the only days off you get (for now) are Thanksgiving and Christmas.

How ironic is it that you (as a part-time employee) don’t get paid for either of them?

Isn’t capitalism great? (All capitalists think so!)

363 days a year you must wake up and make yourself presentable. Drive yourself to the work place to perform your duties (as assigned that day.) Stay on the job until you are granted permission to depart…(can’t just up and leave come quittin’ time in retail!) and all of this for a minimum wage job that has absolutely zero loyalty.

Screw up even once and you’ll be out the door so fast your head will spin.

But that’s the (broken) ‘make yourself useful’ meme of capitalism. People are ‘disposable’. (And if the people you have disposed of become ‘troublesome’ you have the police shoot them down.)

Sort of going off the rails here when it was my ‘original intent’ to point out that weekends are rapidly becoming ‘a thing of the past.’

And this phenomenon is not restricted to the ‘rabble’ doomed to work short hours for shorter money, people who are routinely dismissed with the threat, ‘be happy you have a job!’

That threat extends to the ‘rank and file’ workers in cubicle land as well. Now the pay is slightly better and the atmosphere (slightly) more ‘professional’ than retail but the threat remains the same…or perhaps it gets turned on its head when the boss asks ‘how many of you can speak Hindi?’

Which might explain inexplicable stories such as this one:

Morgan Stanley's $481 Million 4th-Quarter Profit Beats Estimates
By SUSANNE CRAIG 42 minutes ago

Morgan Stanley reported adjusted earnings of 45 cents a share on Friday, driven by gains in wealth management and investment banking.

On a planet with a broken financial system, how the, er, heck does any bank ‘earn’ 45 cents a share without committing fraud?

Banking is (irretrievably) broken good citizen. The imbalances in the global economy CAN NOT BE ‘corrected’ without a complete overhaul that starts with a ‘clean slate’ (across the board.)

So ‘fictions’ like the one above are exactly that.

Which leads us to our next, er, ‘questionable data’:

Economix Blog
Lifting the Veil on the Fed's 2007 Discussions
By DAVID LEONHARDT 27 minutes ago

The Federal Reserve has just released the transcripts of its meetings in the pivotal year of 2007, when the housing bubble started to burst and the global financial crisis began.

Now that they’ve had five years to ‘muddy the waters’ naturally this work of fiction will have gaping holes in it but it will be downplayed as a side effect of the ‘whole truth’ being ‘unknowable’.

Here is another episode of 'the story that refuses to die' despite the corporate owned media not even hinting that globalization is responsible:

Praised but Fire-Prone, Battery Fails Test in 787
By JAD MOUAWAD and CHRISTOPHER DREW

Lithium-ion batteries are popular because they are powerful and charge quickly, but Boeing has had serious problems with the technology on its new Dreamliner.

Powerful Chemical Cocktail, With a Drawback

And anyone who didn’t see the ‘design-flaw’ card coming needs a serious reality check.

Of course it was a design flaw…but why did the design flaw occur?

Was it because the system was designed in Bejing and built in Seattle? It goes without saying that there was ‘no need’ to test it because it is ‘proven technology’…in the end, stupid is as stupid does.

Yet again, this old dog doesn’t need new tricks, the old ones still work fine!

G.E. Profit and Revenues Top Estimates
By REUTERS 7:40 AM ET

General Electric reported a better-than-expected 7.5 percent rise in fourth quarter profit and a sharp increase in its backlog of equipment orders, sending shares up in premarket trading.

Funny how profitability is easy when you’re half manufacturer and three-quarters bank! If you don’t ‘turn a profit’ from sales you just have the banking arm ‘cook the books’!

Speaking of cooked books and their ‘unintended consequences’:

Shell’s rig was grounded after being set adrift in a storm.
As Shell’s Arctic Drilling Hopes Hit Snags, Its Rivals Watch
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and JOHN M. BRODER

Shell’s drilling program, the subject of two federal inquiries, has had problems environmentalists say highlight the dangers of prospecting for oil in the severe Arctic environment.

Talk about your ‘common threads, for years environmentalist have been screaming about the dangers of arctic drilling BUT the ‘too stupid to listen’ crowd goes ahead and does it anyway!

Will they have the chutzpah to say they’re ‘sorry’ after they despoil the arctic chasing what little crude there is?

No, I doubt it, nor will anyone be executed for their ‘hubris’ as has happened here:

At Algerian Oil and Gas Fields Once Thought Safe, New Fears and Precautions
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Local oil executives said foreign oil service companies were in the process of quietly removing several hundred workers until they were confident that the security situation was stable.

Odd how the article implies there was some kind of intelligence indicating the security situation was less than ‘ideal’ but apparently that ‘memo’ was, um, ignored a few moments too long with hostages being taken and killed.

Well, we all know the capitalist credo, ‘profits before people!’ (Power to the shareowners! And oh how they hate the O word! Which is why I use it every chance I get!)

What O word is that, you ask?

The one they can’t defend, ‘Own.’

And for our last entry:

Chinese Economy Expanded at End of 2012, Data Shows
By BETTINA WASSENER

Though there was improvement, economic data also underlined the view that the pace of future growth is likely to remain well below that seen in recent years.

Geez good citizen, I was going to cut this and the story above it off but as it would turn out, they are the two most important stories in today’s offering.

Especially this last offering because it translates to the One Percent’s ‘acceptance’ that the economy as it exists today will constitute the ‘new normal’.

Unemployment will remain as it is as energy prices climb beyond the reach of marginalized citizen.

Which begs the more basic question of whether or not you are still a citizen if the capitalist can’t find a use for you?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Re-think

Greetings good citizen,

As we start a New Year it might be helpful to re-think some of our beliefs (because the people pitching so-called ‘solutions’ have their heads up their asses!)

Thus is today’s offering a vivid example of precisely that phenomenon (I’ll explain after the excerpt.)

Robots Don't Destroy Jobs; Rapacious Corporate Executives Do

Worrying about automation distracts us from the real problem: misuse of corporate profits.

December 31, 2012 |

Americans are understandably upset about profits without prosperity. Corporate executives seem to be the big winners, while the middle class is declining and young people face a bleak economic future. How did this happen? It's easy to blame technology, especially the automation that supposedly displaces workers. But that's not the real story. The fact is that automation creates jobs. It's the misuse of corporate profits that is destroying them.

There was a time when high corporate profits meant bright employment prospects for most members of the US labor force. That relation between profits and prosperity was strongest in the immediate post-World War II decades when US corporations led the world in manufacturing, provided workers with career-long employment security, and reinvested profits in productive capabilities in the United States. For the past three decades, however, the pursuit of corporate profits has been at the expense of prosperity for an ever-growing proportion of the American population.

This disconnect between profits and prosperity began in the 1980s with permanent plant closings that cost production workers their middle-class jobs. It increased in the 1990s as major US corporations scrapped the career-with-one-company norm that had prevailed for salaried employees, and it became common even for college-educated people with a couple of decades of work experience to find themselves on the wrong end of the pink slip. Then in the 2000s, as US corporations accelerated the globalization of production activities, the jobs of all members of the US labor force, no matter what their level of educational attainment, became vulnerable to competition from qualified people in lower wage areas of the world.

The article ‘essentially’ asserts the truth, although it is a stretch indeed to think how automation ‘creates’ jobs (it always ends in ‘net’ job destruction, otherwise it wouldn’t be doable.)

Um, again, the sights are set a bit too low as far as pointing to the true culprits here as well. The front line supervisors do what they’re told, just as unit managers are merely glorified ‘yes men’.

You need to venture into the boardroom and then follow the link to Wall Street, that’s where these irresponsible marching orders originate.

It’s also where the legislation that permits such foolishness starts.

Want to find out who destroyed the US economy…look at who was behind NAFTA…and its primary champion, Ronald Reagan.

Funny how much of what is wrong with today can be traced back to the Reagan Revolution…and the ‘rise of the >One Percent.’

More disturbing are the commercials trying to sucker you into going back to school for a job that most likely doesn’t exist.

Have you seen the college ad that speculates we could ad 20 million new jobs if we only ‘prepared’ for them?

Sort of short for the fucking 230 million working aged people who need work, isn’t it?

This is what I mean, we need to strengthen our grip on ‘reality’ before we become reality’s ‘road kill’.

I’m pretty sure good citizen that the only place on the whole net that you will find pointing to this factor is right here…everyone else either clueless and doesn’t care or assumes you already know and have come to terms with it.

Speaking of the origination of irresponsible concepts we could ‘follow the money’ into the Ivory Towers of Academia to learn who is behind the Randite/Friedman school of economic idiocy.

Rumor has it ‘twas the renowned monopolist Rockefeller…funny (and not necessarily ‘humorous’) the things you can do with ‘money’…

Which only strengthens my case against the current laws governing the uses of money today.

In a ‘more equitable’ world assholes like Rockefeller would be unable to ‘buy legitimacy’ for his pet prejudices.

In a more equitable world you wouldn’t be able to buy the truth either…

But, naturally, I digress…
If I were to share one thing with you good citizen it would be the ‘awareness’ that those who lord over us as our ‘betters’ stopped caring about the welfare of society long ago and focus only on what is good, to and for, THEM.

The ‘fatal myopia’ that I have warned of repeatedly has become so widespread and rampant as to become uncontrollable.

Small comfort that will be when the preppers go on the offensive after squandering their store bought existence…

Again, money gone horribly wrong (but you won’t hear that from Faux News.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

2013

Greetings good citizen,

It appears I have a lot of competition for your attention this New Years Eve…although I suspect the boys and girls on Wall Street hope nobody notices that the markets have tacked on 150 points for nothing (again.)

2012 is over and it turns out the dire predictions that started the year didn’t come to pass…as advertised.

Which is to opine that we are NOT ‘out of the woods’ yet. It’s probably more than a little disturbing to still be sitting right where the financial sector dumped us five years ago.

But you’re not supposed to notice that. You’re supposed to believe we’ve put all that nastiness behind us, the ‘recovery’ (that only the pundits and certain rare breeds of parrots can see) is ‘well underway’ and the future looks bright…(or is that a fire on the distant horizon?)

If it gets much darker (socially speaking) we are going to have to re-define ‘black’.

Funny how hopelessness has a way of intensifying the dark. There was a brief and somewhat blinding flash of illumination five years ago, a fleeting moment when a brilliant flash showed us that our economy was hollow…to the point of being non-existent.

Once the market for ‘faux’ financial services collapsed, nothing remained.

Sure, it still looks like we do stuff here but that is the satellite offices of foreign manufacturers, the rest is just what you'’ find in any other Banana Republic, ‘extractive industries.’

Oh and when the rest of the world runs out of oil and the One percent decides to cash in its US shale reserves, guess who won’t get any? (Because our currency will be worthless.)

But you’re reading that literally when in fact nobody will openly ‘deny’ you access to US produced energy…they will just charge you through the nose for it AND OUR TRAITOROUS POLITICIANS WILL SAY THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT!

I’m telling you right now good citizen, every damn one of them is a traitor (and should therefore pay ‘the traitor’s price.’

How unfortunate is it good citizen that treason, like sanity, is determined by the mindset of the ‘people who matter’.

Even more unfortunate to know that YOU are not among them. (Because YOU KNOW they’re bat-shit crazy!)

Bizarrely, like turning on a light switch, you’ll go from being ‘insignificant’ to being the arbiter of sanity, right after civilization falls off the proverbial cliff.

The question for 2013 is whether or not that cliff is nearby?

And I’d opine yes, good citizen, it’s a lot closer than you’d think. The as yet ‘unresolved’ fiscal cliff that the buttlicking corporate owned media mistakenly characterizes as a ‘failure to compromise’ threatens to push an already fragile economy over the edge.

Implying the (still spineless) Dems won’t give in when we all KNOW it is the conservo-whackos who won’t do what needs to be done. This could be the trigger the robbers have been waiting since ‘Morning in America’ to pull.

Which is to opine that the conservo-whackos are patient if nothing else…

But it’s the ‘persistent’ part that has the rest of us worried (to the point of questioning their sanity.)

That and their ‘no compromise’ attitude. Here they are, begging for compromise just like their capitalist heroes do (my way or the highway!)

We, as a society, can no longer afford (read tolerate) this variety of myopia.

It literally leads to an ‘us vs. them’ mentality that is toxic to social creatures like ourselves.

While this seems like little more than ‘sound advice’ we seriously need to take the matter to heart and literally ‘weed out’ those unfit to lead because THAT is where the problem is rooted.

Those who lead DO NOT have the best interests of society in their minds when they pass judgement…often on topics they have no right deciding and they are the same people who are ‘leading’ our society over a cliff we will not recover from.

The breakdown in trust alone may become insurmountable. We are already in danger of that happening with the financial system.

One of today’s headlines was on precisely this topic. As the ‘government guarantees’ expire on certain classes of securities, bankers are slicing the funds up into FDIC insurable amounts to protect themselves.

From what remains uncertain.

I don’t need to remind you that ALL money is FUNNY (regardless of who backs it!)

Which is why these gyrations to recover ‘government protection’ are actually amusing.

Our government is as broke as the rest of us…and that’s the doing of the One Percent!

The thing YOU need to remember is whosoever controls YOUR money, controls YOU!

Do you think a bunch of self-centered opportunists should be in charge of YOUR cash?

Let’s ring in 2013 as we ponder what to do about this pickle…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bad to the Bone

Greetings good citizen,

As I approach my second (full) year of unemployment (this most recent odyssey started in 2011.) it occurs to me that it might be easier for me to see the unraveling of our civilization more clearly than the rest of you because I’m caught in the center of the storm.

It is important to point out that I am not alone on my perch that provides me a ‘birds-eye view’ of the situation, there are millions of us (if not billions…depending on how far you cast your net and there is a disturbing tendency to ‘stop’ when one reaches the number of people in YOUR country, like the rest don’t matter.

Part of the problem with the ‘banking crisis’ is people don’t understand these trillions of dollars…are owed by nations with populations the size of a small US state!

Adding to this ‘cognitive dissonance’ is the purposeful ignorance on how these systems ‘interact’ (because of the need to fudge the fuck out of certain factors most people never consider.)

today’s offering attempts to provide us with a glimpse of that larger, more than somewhat fuzzy, picture:

Any reforms which seek to address growth in the context of private sector debt deleveraging and demographics ought to be made with a focus on increasing the economy’s capacity to produce real goods and services today and in the future, rather than on ensuring positive actuarial balances through eternity. Unlike the case with individuals, social policy can provision for the future in real terms—by increasing productive capacity in the intervening years. For example, policies that might encourage long-lived public and private infrastructure investment could ease the future burden of providing for growing numbers of retirees by putting into place the infrastructure that will be needed in an aging society: nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, independent living communities, aged-friendly public transportation systems, and senior citizen centers.

(Screeching, ear-splittingly loud, halt!)
Read the above again, slowly and let it sink in.

Makes sense doesn’t it? EXCEPT for the ‘how do we pay for it?’ part, it’s all too beautiful!

Did you notice the blinders on the topic of ‘over-capacity’? Our economy is at FULL STOP because the consumer can’t afford any more debt…why don’t these boneheads devise a solution that deals with this problem first?

It is articles like this one that basically prove that tired old ideas are not the path we can follow into the future…(but you can’t tell the One Percent that, they don’t want to hear it.)

Education and training could increase future productivity. Policies that maintain high employment and minimize unemployment (both officially measured unemployment, as well as those counted as out of the labor force) are critical to maintain a higher worker-to retiree ratio. Policy can also encourage seniors of today and tomorrow to continue to participate in the labor force. The private sector will play a role in all of this, but there is also an important role to be played by government.

Um, back to the ‘cognitive dissonance’ problem (which is not limited to us mere peasants.)

The creators and issuers of ‘funny money’ are the ONLY ONES capable of fixing this problem…that the PRIVATE SECTOR CREATED!

If you read between the lines here you will see that ‘Libertarians ‘R’ Us’ sees the private sector filling it’s usual role of collecting rents and oppressing the general welfare for its own safety.

But I digress…

On balance, if we were to focus on only one policy arena today that would best enhance our ability to deal with a higher aged dependency ratio tomorrow it would be to ensure full employment with rising skill levels. Such a policy would have immediate benefits, in addition to those to be realized in the future. This is a clear “win-win” policy, unlike the ugly trade-off promoted by both parties, who only differ in the degree to which today’s workers and future seniors are to pay for the mistakes of the banksters through misguided proposals to “reform” entitlements and put our future on a “fiscally sustainable” path.

Do you see the ‘win’ good citizen or has the gloss worn off that old banner promoting ‘unlimited, perpetual growth’?

Make no mistake about it good citizen, it is precisely this belief in ‘voodoo economics’ (also known as ‘wishful thinking’) that has led us to where we are today.

A sustainable future does not consist of turning our former manufacturing facilities into (fake) ‘state of the art’ assisted living facilities (and training ALL of our kids to be candy stripers and orderlies…)

You can’t pay for extended care if you earn minimum wage and your taxes don’t cover the nut either.

All economies are LOCAL.

That’s were it starts and that’s the key feature behind A Simple Plan, creating robust local economies that nurture a healthy, well educated public.

But you have to read and understand it before you can successfully advocate for it!

You not only will be doing yourself a favor but your kids will thank you for freeing them from the cycle of exploitation YOUR PARENTS condemned YOU to!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Soaked Rhubarb

Greetings good citizen,

While it’s too soon to tell yet the media has certainly turned the latest weather event into a three-ring circus…and it seems like everybody is getting in on the act!

DealBook
N.Y.S.E. Plans to Close Its Trading Floor
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED

The New York Stock Exchange plans to close its trading floor on Monday as Hurricane Sandy approaches, in the first weather-related closure in 27 years.

Um, how much longer will it be before we start reading claims that this is ‘The Wrath of God’ personified?

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

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

But I digress…where were we?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why do you suppose that was, good citizen?

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

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

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

But how do we accomplish this lofty goal?

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

Anything you can hold in your hand can be faked.

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

You guessed it, they’re ALL ‘funny’!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?

Not if it’s in cans!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Our fates are intertwined

Greetings good citizen,

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

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

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

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

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

With that fact firmly in mind, what are we to make of this latest exercise in ‘mental masturbation’?

As the 2012 election crests with all its chaos—billionaire-driven TV ad wars, legal fights over voter suppression tactics, endless fundraising e-mails and worries about stealing the vote—progressives need to remember what’s been destroying our democracy and what solutions are needed to restore the balance of power in America.

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

That’s how our dysfunctional democracy may limp along until the next major election (the 2016 midterms) or a national crisis. But the first year of a presidential term is the most likely time that Congress might do anything on a big enough scale to touch the underlying problems because it’s the ebb tide in the electoral cycle.

And once again I have to sit here and contemplate why it is so difficult for the average person to understand that NONE of this will change WITHOUT A FULL BORE, BLOOD IN THE STREETS REVOLUTION!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your belief in their lies makes them rich!

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

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

But I digress.

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

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

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

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

Wake the fuck up, will ya?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Donkey

Greetings good citizen,

Despite the extraordinary amount of ‘happy talk’ being spewed by the irresponsible Corporate Owned Media, the global economy is still in a death spiral…But the savvy among you already know that. Financial values make absolutely zero sense, as we see here:

Shares Rise on Hope For Better Jobless Data
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:53 PM ET

Manufacturing grew in September for the first time in four months

Um, okay…you know these asshats are famous for their number games so first we need a definition of ‘manufacturing’ and then we need to know how many hundredths of a percent constitutes ‘growth’?

Of course these licker’s of dog penises don’t care about what they write so long as they get their paycheck.

In reality, you can’t fault them, a job is a job is a job. Who cares what you do as long as it pays the bills?

But, naturally not all jobs ‘pay the bills’ as evidenced by the 46 million Americans on some form of ‘food assistance’. Then there are the poor S.O.B’s living in shelters (IF they get there in time…)

Five years after the ‘re-fi lovefest’ crashed what passed for the real economy the clueless cheerleaders are still pointing at chimera and crying ‘recovery’!

But there’s something wrong in River City…

Unemployment in Euro Zone at Record High
By DAVID JOLLY and RAPHAEL MINDER

The data showing a jobless rate of 11.4 percent overall in the euro area in August underscores that the European recession is deepening, analysts said.

US unemployment is still in the eight percent range…but our friends over in the Euro-zone are suffering nearly half again that rate.

(And trust me, good citizen, I use the term ‘friend’ in the broadest possible sense. The Europeans KNOW who is the author of their suffering…)

But wait, it seems the Eurozone isn’t the only region suffering…

In China and Japan, Economic Troubles Persist
By BETTINA WASSENER

Fresh data on Monday underscored the economic drags holding back the global economy despite the efforts of policy makers and central bankers around the world.

I wonder if you asked the average Japanese citizen if they thought this, er, ‘global depression’ could last for three decades back in the 1990’s, the affable Japanese citizen back then would probably have thought you were pulling their leg.

I’ll bet they don’t find it’s ‘funny’ now.

And that’s the hell of it good citizen, now that ‘silly season’ is upon us, both candidates are unveiling their plans to ‘revitalize the US economy’.

Um, Mr. Romney is endorsing the ‘typical’ laundry list of Republican backed tax breaks for the rich and austerity for everyone else (after all, prosperity, like free speech, is for the ‘One Percent’.

The unwashed rabble ‘don’t deserve it.’

Okay, so Mr. Obama is running with the ‘exact same plan HE DIDN’T enact last time!’

Why, oh why would ANYONE believe he means it this time?

I mean after all, if we re-elect him, he can’t run again so if he doesn’t live up to his campaign promises, well, he’d be running right about average with the rest of ‘em.

The thing that’s ‘different’ this time is how that hard, stony ground is zooming up to meet us (as gravity pulls us to our doom. It has to do with that cliff we fell off of five years ago.)

Yeah baby, they can promise us blue skies from here to eternity because the whole damn thing is gonna crash and burn in a few weeks time (say roughly a dozen.)

Then this whole CF will be the ‘new management’s problem.

Worse, the ‘new management’ will become OUR problem.

People don’t like change, especially when it’s rammed up their poopchute!

But the new boss doesn’t care if you like it or not. They are ‘prepared’ for trouble and troublemakers like you.

His boyz, the ones in the blue suits, are gonna do what they’re told if they want to see their next paycheck.

Funny how that green paper has everybody in a sort of a trance.

It’s enough to make you wonder if the whole species is ‘too stupid to live’.

Because the, er, ‘deceivers’ are performing contortions to maintain control, while they are simultaneously planning on as hard a landing as possible.

Which is to ask, good citizen, how long will it be before YOU realize there are stacks of that green stuff just laying around for the taking.

Rather than working your butt off, when are you going to go down and ‘make a withdrawal’?

Actually, you’d be better off just grabbing the things the green stuff is used to buy.

Sort of cuts to the chase and eliminates the getting ripped off part of the puzzle.

Just try to time it close to collapse of civil order, then nobody is going to bother chasing you. (Although the ‘like-minded’ may, er, ‘challenge’ your claim. In which case the better-armed party will prevail.)

Funny how if you remove the paycheck, the guys in the blue suit are just like you, a paycheck donkey the predators capitalists beat mercilessly (and senseless.)

One thing is for certain, YOU can’t afford to be ‘a Donkey’ no more.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Make Believe

Greetings good citizen,

As a Romney victory becomes more and more unlikely the oligarchs will simply flex their muscles and claim, for the fifth consecutive election cycle, that the mythical ‘swing voter’ carried the day…again.

We continue to careen down the greased skids prepared for us by the >One Percent as the vast majority of the nation continues to agree that we are on the ‘wrong path’…but somehow can’t agree on how to correct the nation's course.

(Because the ones doing the steering also control ‘the message’.)

Although sometimes you have to wonder just what are they trying to tell us…

Anti-American Protests Flare Beyond the Mideast
By RICK GLADSTONE

Anti-American rage that began over a video insult to Islam spread to nearly 20 countries in the Middle East and beyond.

Notice how Arab Spring, once interpreted to mean that the Muslims wanted to be ‘free’ (as in ‘free marketers’ like the> One Percent.) Now reflects the recognition of their hatred for the world’s ‘true terrorists’, that same >One Percent.

Why even acknowledge this political football, they could just as easily ignore it as they do countless other issues.

But no, to acknowledge a thing is to defuse it. Here is the corporate owned media on the job, telling us that ‘yeah they hate us but they’re a nation full of haters, it’s what they do.’

Let’s not get into why that hatred is justified or the likelihood of the whole situation blowing up one of these fine days…

They acknowledge the hatred only to dismiss it…but you knew that.

Sort of similar to this article here:

Poll Finds Obama Is Erasing Romney's Edge on Economy
By JEFF ZELENY and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN

President Obama has taken away Mitt Romney's advantage as the candidate voters say is most likely to restore the economy, according to the latest poll by The New York Times and CBS News.

Graphic: Likely Voters' Views of Obama and Romney

We need only refer back to our opening remarks to see where they’re going with this one. It doesn’t matter that Romney is a card caring member of the >One Percent. It also doesn’t matter to the oligarchs if their boy Obama wins, same end result…(although Obama will provide more of a ‘status quo’ performance, meaning the changes that would have been ushered in under a Romney/Ryan administration would have to be done ‘undercover’.)

In case you live in a cave and didn’t notice, the freaking Dow (which is mostly financial stocks) closed the week up 250 points…for absolutely NO GOOD REASON!

Can you say ‘stop thief?’

I knew you could…let me know how that works out for you…k?

News Analysis
Fed Responds to a Grim Reality
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

In a meaningful departure from past policy, the Federal Reserve said it would focus on reducing unemployment at the risk of provoking higher inflation.

Constant reader knows statements like the one above are enough to launch me into a screaming tirade about the nature and general level of ignorance surrounding money…but I will spare you the lecture…this time.

And parrot what all of the other ‘serious people’ are pointing out…that the fed buying the banking industry’s trash for big money does absolutely zero for the real economy.

The bankers aren’t about to start lending because there’s nobody to lend to. That’s WHY the Fed (and central banks worldwide) continue to buy the banking system’s ‘bad paper’…because otherwise the banking system WOULD COLLAPSE!

Again we see that what you’re being told and what they’re actually doing varies wildly…and that’s okay. It doesn’t matter until it does…and by the time it does it will be too late.

You aren’t going to see job growth because perpetual expansion is impossible…even if you ‘cook the books’ six ways to Sunday!

You know it, I know it and they know YOU know it…yet the lies continue; so they can pretend that somebody believes them!

This won’t stop until we literally make them stop.

But now I belabor the obvious.

This is the power of ‘make believe’. If you can convince the general public that ‘some people’ support your point of view, it doesn’t matter that you can’t produce these people…(like the 33,000 physical member Tea Party movement…that’s an order of magnitude less than >One Percent.)

If that’s what it takes for you to get your way, then that’s what you do…

Are you getting this?

Sorry to keep running you into the limits of your understanding but it has to be done…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Former number 2...

Greetings good citizen,

Markets are once again ‘cliff-diving’ as jaw-boning a global recovery becomes less and less effective…a tactic that continues to be proven wrong at every juncture and by every measure.

When ‘improvement’ is seen it has proven to be both miniscule and massaged…which is to say it is ‘statistically indistinguishable’ from the margin of error in the reported data.

Which usually turns out to have been ‘wildly optimistic’ when it is examined again later.

But hey, what’s happening doesn’t matter, it’s what YOU BELIEVE that matters.

Well, every once in a while things pop up to remind us that the world’s second largest economy tanked over two decades ago (due to globalization) and has yet to recover.

The preliminary estimate for the three months through June is sharply lower than the revised 5.5 percent annual rate of gross domestic product growth in the first quarter. The second-quarter figure fell short of the median forecast of 2.3 percent among 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, and it signaled that the recovery after the earthquake and tsunami of last year might be stalling.

The slowdown has also highlighted economic worries just days after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda won his bid to double the Japanese sales tax to tackle swelling public debt, with the upper house of Parliament passing the increase Friday. The last sales tax increase, in 1997, snuffed out any hope of a strong recovery from the Japanese banking crisis of the 1990s, and opponents of Mr. Noda have warned that the latest increase in the tax could lead to a similar slowdown.

At a board meeting last week, the Bank of Japan held back from easing monetary policy, saying that reconstruction demand in the wake of the tsunami was continuing to drive economic growth. But the central bank cut its outlook for exports and output, citing global economic risks, and it signaled that it was ready to expand stimulus again if needed.

Do we really need to play ‘Mirror, mirror’ here? Aren’t we headed down the very same ‘primrose path’ Japan was forced down more than twenty years ago?

Which begs the question of, ‘was Japan the ‘dry run’ for what the oligarchs eventually DID to the US?’

National ‘economic suicide’ through financial fraud.

Ironically, Japan’s banking sector problems are being blamed on ‘Organized Crime’.

Worse good citizen, take a drive down any US highway and what do you see? Toyota’s and Hondas, all being driven by unemployed Americans!

What does this tell you good citizen?

That SOMEBODY in Japan is still raking in the big bucks…but all of those ‘profits’ are going into the pockets of a decidedly corrupt banking sector.

I know you were thinking something different and you’re right, but that’s not the point I am attempting to make.

The ‘focus’ here is on the ‘global’ > One Percent.

Which I’d like to think I’ve made it pretty clear the problems our civilization is faced with are ‘global’ in nature…meaning the perps are operating on a global basis.

So when I comment that ‘the destruction of our civilization proceeds apace, I’m not just talking about the USA, I’m talking EVERYWHERE!

You might want to ‘test drive’ the idea of a ‘global monarchy’ in your head (as reprehensible as that idea is) for a while so you aren’t totally blind-sided when they, er, ‘coronate’ the new King and Queen of the planet!

(It’s either that or we go ALL ‘Orwell’ and find ourselves divided into perpetually warring factions with the ‘third’ party alternating between the role of ally and enemy, meaning you can never completely trust them.)

For the second time I emphasize the point: Reality doesn’t matter, it’s what you BELIEVE that counts!

And the bought and paid for corporate owned media regularly fill YOUR noggin with shit pudding, occasionally swapping the cherry on top with a different variety of turd.

Worse, good citizen…the media keeps on (subtly) blaming YOU for not acting when you actually never had the opportunity to act!

After convincing you that 20% is somehow 50%, it is the ‘unknown’ whackos out there who keep voting against what’s ‘good for the country’.

This is how they’re going to sell the Romney/Ryan ticket to you…that there are more whacko Tea Partiers out there than you know!

Mind you they could only account for 30,000 of ‘em at the peak of their popularity but you’re gonna be told that they ‘carried’ the election for a >One Percent ‘underdog’…

And it’s a meaningless question to ask ‘how stupid do they think we are’ if you continue to do nothing about it?

Look at everything they’ve gotten away with to date:

They have effectively ‘ended’ welfare.

The have exported our manufacturing sector.

They have provided aid and material comfort to our enemies (and profited mightily in the exchange.)

The have cheated tens of millions out of their retirement funds. They literally bankrupted the global financial network…and nobody has been prosecuted.

So maybe it’s time to step back for a moment and look at what happened to the world’s ‘second largest economy’ and think about ‘why’ it happened?

You don’t suppose there was a little ‘criminal element’ involved, do you?

Just keep standing there, the boys will be along in a little while to fit you with your new cement overshoes.

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

History

Greetings good citizen,

Markets opened ‘up’ on Wall Street despite disastrous news for the global banking system…but the ‘pocket stuffers’ don’t give a shit about reality. You can bet your boots the day the economy does a face-plant in the dust, the ‘traders’ will be busy bidding up the price of worthless stocks.

It’s what they do…how fucking pathetic is that?

Now, before you think I’m going schizo on you let me clarify the insidiousness of the Libertarian mind. They are more than willing to parrot popular memes if it helps to hide their true agenda from a very confused public.

I would also point out that Libby Central didn’t compose this particular article, they lifted it from the Booman Tribune:

What I Know About Our Corporate Overlords

To understand the last 40 years, and how we got to the place we are now is hard to understand on the macro level for many people. That's why a simplified lie - give more to the rich and all will benefit -- has worked so well, even though history has shown us again and again that this well worn myth is untrue. So why does it work on so many people? Well, Americans are peculiarly ignorant of history, their own and the history of other nations and cultures. Our own culture preaches self-reliance, independence and the rejection of charity. Follow these simple rules and you too can achieve your goals, you too can have the "American Dream" of wealth and comfort.

And that is why the lie is so appealing. We want to believe that in America there is this dream that anyone can make it rich. We feast on stories of hard working individuals who came out of poverty, who came literally from "nowhere" to become rich and famous. We live under the hazy mists of a cloud cuckoo land, one where the individual is all powerful and controls his or her own fate. A myth that has never been true for the vast majority of people. Yet even today, we here from the generations that benefited the most from government programs and subsidies that whatever they accomplished they did it all by their lonesome.

Yes, you will always find stories of individuals who made it up from the depths of poverty (though most of them these days seem to be sports stars), but more likely than not you, if you dig hard enough will find that those who allegedly "made it" on their own were actually the children of rich people who became even richer than their parents. And those who do become extremely rich typically do so with the support of governments and by exploiting the labor and health of others. In general, the rich as a class are more ruthless, less generous and more willing to act illegally and immorally than the poor. Just ask any one who works for a hedge fund manager or a major company's CEO and ask them how they got to the position they did. In general, most of them did it by stepping on other people (especially subordinates but also their peers), and by practicing the arts of lying, cheating, deceit, fraud and ruthlessness.

I recommend you click through and read the rest, it is seldom that you encounter such refreshing ‘directness’.

If the Libby’s didn’t throw you the occasional piece of ‘red meat’ like this, you would, as I have, begun to ask just who are these people?

And the answer would eventually come back as the ‘triangulating centrists’ that got us into this mess in the first place!

Because I have indeed come to the conclusion that the ‘thing’ that swallowed up the Democratic party and turned it spineless is in fact a branch of the Libertarian assault on humanity.

All of this ‘triangulating’ is intended to mis-direct you from the valid arguments you SHOULD BE MAKING by convincing you there is a ‘compromise’ in a situation where there really isn’t any acceptable ‘middle ground’.

They don’t need to be ‘right’; all they need to do is prevent YOU from acting!

Their whole goal is to get you out of action mode and into listening mode. If you ‘buy’ their bullshit, mission accomplished. If you don’t buy, then they start in on how ‘unreasonable’ YOU’RE being.

Again, they can be wronger than wrong but the problem is (as far as they’re concerned) YOU!

You’re not agreeing with them is ‘wrong’ and they simply won’t have it!

The second someone starts handing you the ‘let’s not be hasty’ line you have to shut ‘em down, immediately! (And in most cases forcefully.)

You may be forced to shoot them to get them to shut up!

I do NOT recommend you shoot anyone (if you can avoid it) but when push comes to shove, you do what you’ve gotta do.

In the end it all comes down to choices and anyone who interferes with your freedom to choose isn’t doing you any favors.

Which brings us full circle with the ‘free market’ assault on the workers of the world.

It comes down to the old split between producers and sellers.

The producer knows what it ‘cost’ him to produce a given thing in terms of time, inputs and sacrifice.

The seller doesn’t. He only knows he has to win the difference between what he pays and what his non-producing customer is willing to pay.

This ‘ignorance of cost’ produces some outlandish, er, ‘market fluctuations’.

Which in turn produces some pretty bizarre variances in the ‘value’ of money.

(It’s part of what makes ALL money ‘funny’.)

This ‘separation’ between producer and seller is decidedly ‘unhealthy’ for the rest of society.

You see, the (immensely) ‘ignorant’ seller concentrates his attention on the ‘ownership’ of the thing without regard of its true value (a matter of pure perspective even at the best of times!)

The producer is more mindful of the ‘demand’ for the item they produce as well as the overall benefit that item provides to society…(something the seller could care less about.)

What you should really ask yourself, good citizen is just how much do you buy ‘direct’ from the source?

You’ll be surprised at how little this actually is…and it should make you wonder why you are being subjected to the predations of the ‘middleman’.

The human anti-exploitation law, an idea whose time has come!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Prophecy

Greetings good citizen,

The opening bell just sounded but it’s too early to see where the markets are going…although if the ‘rest of the world’ is any indication, our capitalist overlords have another day of bloodshed on their hands.

But who knows, it seems for some (totally illogical) reason; yesterday’s pigs morph into today’s gems!

How sad is it good citizen that the ‘rationale’ behind purchasing stocks has boiled down to, ‘because they’re there’?

But it leads us right up to the edge of the world of ‘funny money’. The ‘presto-chango' required for a nation to abandon one currency and to then issue their own…er, ‘fiat’ currency.

Many of you have probably already heard about Mr. Krugman’s self-fulfilling prophecy by now but here it is for those of you who like under a rock (or anywhere inside the US propaganda zone…)

Below is his post in its entirety.

Some of us have been talking it over, and here’s what we think the end game looks like:

1. Greek euro exit, very possibly next month.

2. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany.

3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdrawals.

3b. Alternatively, or maybe in tandem, huge draws on ECB credit to keep the banks from collapsing.

4a. Germany has a choice. Accept huge indirect public claims on Italy and Spain, plus a drastic revision of strategy — basically, to give Spain in particular any hope you need both guarantees on its debt to hold borrowing costs down and a higher eurozone inflation target to make relative price adjustment possible; or:

4b. End of the euro.

And we’re talking about months, not years, for this to play out

Switch mental gears here as we explore the task of putting your own currency out there on the ‘global currency market’.

Understand that nobody doubts that the new currency will be ‘named’ what the old currency was called, at least in Greece’s case, the Drachma will be ‘resurrected’.

The ‘trouble’ comes in at where this ‘new’ currency will be valued relative to the (mostly worthless) already existing currencies.

Get this bad boy wrong and you have instant Zimbabwe on your hands!

IF those who dictate what our currency is worth are ‘too generous’ to Greece there will be a mad scramble to abandon the Euro…so we can be assured that the new Drachma will not receive ‘favorable treatment’.

Now it all depends on (because we’ve got a ‘chickens and eggs situation on our hands here) what they do AFTER a price is ‘set’.

They won’t be able to print Drachma number one without first specifying how many they intend to issue at that price and what will be used to, er, ‘back that claim up’.

Which is to say the market makers won’t issue a ‘value’ for the new Drachma until they are given an idea how many of them there will be.

Naturally, the Greeks would want to, er, ‘undermine’ the Euro, the old Drachma was like the Italian Lira in that respect…which mimicked the Japanese Yen.

One yen is worth roughly one US cent (which was responsible for turning Japan into an exporting dynamo! So how sad is it that it also marks the beginning of the long slippery slope of ‘financial manipulation’ that ultimately destroyed the global economy?)

Like the ‘cesspool’ we live in? Thank a fucking banker!

Back to our ‘exploration’…

AFTER a ‘value’ is set, the Greeks will ‘revalue’ as quickly as possible.

This is where the ‘tug of war’ begins. It is also kind of how they got into this trouble in the first place.

How much money there actually is and how much money they SAY they have will soon turn into a matter of ‘conjecture’ and all of a sudden the global banking system will find itself ‘awash’ in Greek debt instruments.

Hell, it worked the first time and NOTHING has been fixed…

And this time it’s ‘shame on me’! (Which is to opine we should be ‘smart enough’ not to get taken twice…but what kind of world would it be if you couldn’t trust anyone?)

A mighty dysfunctional one good citizen…and no place you’d want to raise a family in.

In a world where nobody can trust anybody we have the beginnings of a global systemic collapse, and we have our financial sector to thank for it!

Naturally, we can only skim the surface of this issue in a few paragraphs but the point is quite clear.

If we can’t trust the people who handle our money then we are well and truly…

Don’t you agree?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Um, PS: A Simple Plan ‘stabilizes’ money by re-purposing it to its ONE useful social function, that of a regulator.

Under A Simple plan there is NO currency, only money of account that is totally non-transferable and therefore, non-negotiable.

Thus does the ‘cheaper there’ not exist, just as it is a ‘fiction’ today.

Um, you have to understand the ‘true nature’ of money to comprehend the above statements which refer to the frauds you are regularly victims of.

I’m unsure how helpful you would find the explanation of a Duck remaining a duck, a Pig remaining a pig and a Dollar remaining a dollar no matter where you were!

No Place to Hide...

Greetings good citizen (& comrades,)

One of the ‘contradictions’ of targeting the proverbial ‘one percent’ is the well known fact that they ARE NOT a ‘cohesive group’.

If not for their ‘common enemy’ (the rest of us, ergo the 99%) they would dedicate (more of) their attention toward wiping each other out.

There is much to be gleaned from this morning’s offering set as it is in the former Soviet Union.

It is a mystery on the same level as the kings stepping off of their thrones in succession after the US revolution that the world’s two (nominally communist) nations both abandoned their failed economic systems and embraced (failing) capitalism (one of whom did this WITHOUT disavowing communism!)

Well, this small ‘retrospective’ of how it went down in Russia offers some clues to what happens when revolutions are, er, ‘privatized’…

Post-Soviet privatizations shifted state-owned factories into the hands of a coterie of well-connected businessmen — the oligarchs. Partly as a result, Russia has 101 billionaires, behind only China, with 115, and the United States, with 412, according to Forbes.

Only now, capital flight, a problem in the 1990s, has re-emerged. Money is flowing out of Russia faster than it is flowing in. The net outflow is expected to reach $70 billion by year-end, and the figures suggest that the bulk of that will be from large investors.

Yaroslav Lissovolik, chief economist for Deutsche Bank here, notes that “the scale of capital flight has more than compensated for the rise of oil prices.”

Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ ignores the undeniable fact that when some one ‘wins’, there are inevitably losers.

Which is to point out that ‘greed’, even greed passed off as serving the greater good, is still a game of winners and LOSERS.

And after almost 400 years, the ‘losers’ are starting to pile up out there!

Which is, not too bizarrely, viewed as King Louis’s big mistake.

He didn’t ‘exterminate’ the rabble often enough, thus he lost his head (and the throne too!)

Um, I mention this because it forms the basis of my ‘kill off’ theory. The powerful feel compelled to kill off large segments of the ‘preferably’ surplus population (although it is all the same to them. As far as they’re concerned we could all be replaced with trained baboons (and they wouldn’t notice the difference!)

Greed is NOT GOOD. It INEVITABLY results in the SQUANDERING of resources!

And this is NOT an argument you want to get into with the ‘self-centered’, who, by default, view any effort expended not advancing their own agenda as ‘wasted’.

Why do you think the poor number in the billions? It is because the selfish/greedy don’t give a damn about anybody but themselves!

If we flip back a few paragraphs we would see the downright ‘shameful’ number of global billionaires…

Which opens another, er, ‘window’ good citizen.

How the hell did we leap from Millionaire to Billionaire in a single generation?

Ironically, the answer lies in ‘peak oil!’

A phenomenon that is being driven by a global population that is out of control…

Um, just because the corporate owned media, er, ‘chooses to ignore’ certain topics doesn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, mean they are ‘non-issues’.

Let us take our unemployment ‘crisis’ in the context of an ‘out of control’ population.

There aren’t enough jobs for the people we already have…yet we continue to ‘breed’ more ‘workers’. (Making babies is the main reason why (the children of) workers don’t suicide on their 15th birthday…despite some believing that they should!)

Funny how that ‘biological imperative’ turns into a two-edged sword…isn’t it?

And you can’t, er, discourage someone that has little else to live for from breeding or they won’t squander their lives making YOU rich!

Neat trap, eh?

Ironic that the, er, only effective/humane way to get our population back under control is to ‘level the playing field’ so the battle for survival doesn’t turn the planet into ‘scorched earth’, fit for no one.

In case you didn’t detect it, that was indeed another shot at our ‘useless’ media…not that I expect it to change anything.

Nope, I’m putting my faith in YOU gentle reader! There are more of you than you may think.

Eventually, you will start hearing people talking about the ideas presented to them here and you will find that it wasn’t a ‘waste of time’ to click through that blogger firewall after all.

But the key here is ‘eventually’.

Although I do invite you to share this with your, er, ‘friends’ (possibly revealing them as not being quite the ‘friend’ you thought they were…)

Which is to acknowledge that the self-centered don’t like ‘sunshine’.

It’s like the ‘factually challenged’ Republicans that are unable to defend their assertions with logic.

Like I said, this isn’t about ‘me’ it’s about ‘us’…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PS. You know I seldom 'add' to a post afterwards BUT I was just visiting The Automatic Earth and read Ilargi's opening comments...which is mighty sound advice, considering what will happen if there's a 'panic' in Europe (It will cause one here as well.)

If you don't have some 'ready cash' on hand, it would be advisable to 'get some'...before you can't!

Although I suspect this will do you little good if you aren't prepared to spend it all quickly...because that's the 'other shoe'.

Prices will likely go haywire!

Just saying, ya know?

To Whom?

Greetings good citizen,

With the understanding that the current NYSE is, er, ‘off’ by12,000 points, the markets dropped nearly 400 points on the eminent failure of the Euro-zone.

Which begs a rather obvious question, precisely WHO is ‘idiot enough’ to buy European bonds in the first place?

Financial institutions are dumping their vast holdings of European government debt and spurning new bond issues by countries like Spain and Italy. And many have decided not to renew short-term loans to European banks, which are needed to finance day-to-day operations.

If this trend continues, it risks creating a vicious cycle of rising borrowing costs, deeper spending cuts and slowing growth, which is hard to get out of, especially as some European banks are having trouble meeting their financing needs.

“It’s a pretty terrible spiral,” said Peter R. Fisher, vice chairman of the asset manager BlackRock and a former senior Treasury official in the Clinton administration.

Same thing with stocks good citizen. There is absolutely ZERO chance of any capitalist corporation remaining profitable so who is STUPID enough to buy stocks?

Just another ‘reality check’ here good citizen but WHO (in their right mind) is going to ‘buy’ your house from you for MORE than YOU paid for it?

Sadly, the only positive outcome here will be your children, IF they can swing the onerous financing (and chances are good they won’t.)

(And if you’re any kind of caring parent you won’t let them!)

In case you don’t comprehend my question, it can be phrased more clearly as asking who, (besides banks that owe their charters to the country they were established in) would buy government ‘funny money’?

There is a common ‘misconception’ that countries CAN’T go bankrupt…which you know is a bunch of crap!

Ironically, the name of the game becomes the rebuff made by the fool that goes, ‘I can’t be broke, I still have checks!’

Or that’s the ‘theory’ anyway…

Worse good citizen, this whole ‘confidence game’ has been going on since the beginning (of money itself.)

And until you get sick of having the best things in life being perpetually priced out of your reach it won’t change and it won’t stop.

The misery that surrounds you each and every day is the direct result of the ‘mismanagement’ cause by the, er, ‘misuse’ of the world’s resources.

‘Money is the MOST misused substance in our civilization, it is even more misused than ‘love’ (and that‘s saying something.)

How sad is it good citizen that we could, until just recently, turn a blind eye to this abuse?

But with the ground ‘rushing up to meet us’, we can no longer ignore the ‘excesses’ of those who use their control over the money supply to manipulate events.

Ironically, after ripping the rest of us off for thousands of years, NOW they’re trying to kill us!

Lest we find ourselves in that terrible situation of ‘when your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail’…

Well, their only tool is money and they certainly know how to use it to kill.

Like many ‘one trick ponies’ they probably don’t know how to turn the situation around much less set it back on the ‘right’ path.

This is the danger I keep warning of, they KNOW their way of doing things ‘breaks down’ once the ‘customer pool’ gets too large.

The thing that has them desperate is the thing they can do nothing about.

Once energy is no longer cheap or abundant our ENTIRE social model breaks down IRREVOCABLY!

Beyond the occasional anecdote in the corporate owned media, you’d think ‘Peak Oil’ was decades away rather than a point that is ALREADY BEHIND US!

I have described, in gruesome detail, how our civilization will collapse.

We CAN save our species but only by finally removing the self-interested from their cozy perches.

This is where your typical conservative invokes the ‘jealousy’ card but stops short of flat out denial.

Because they know the charge is true.

Worse, it appears the top 20% MAY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ‘in on the ruse’ perpetrated on the other 80%…

Well, the really ironic part of all of this is having only 20% of the population ‘on your side’ isn’t enough.

And somehow I don’t think the 80% are in a particularly forgiving mood right about now.

Yeah, we all know the 99% figure OWS settled on was letting the other 19% off easy, at least 20 percent of the population consists of conceited suck-ups. People who KNOW they are ‘more deserving’ than the rest of us…

And won’t they howl when we give ‘em what they deserve!

The lies are getting gargantuan good citizen, look to your conscience and govern yourself accordingly.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Why we are in trouble

Greetings good citizen,

We’ll leave the ‘stupidity markets’ alone today as it has long since been proven that market performance has no relationship to economic reality. A fact that will only get more disturbing as time goes on.

Instead we will start with two very different tales about the ‘be-all, end-all’

As Bank of America executives prepared last week to announce the first phase of their turnaround plan, a group of consultants hurried to complete their recommendations for the overhaul, called Project New BAC.

The 44 senior bank managers and roughly two dozen consultants assigned to the initiative worked through lunch, barely pausing to enjoy the pepperoni, sausage and vegetarian pies that had been ordered from a pizzeria.

On Monday, the bank’s chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, announced the broad strokes of their five-month effort, announcing plans to eliminate 30,000 jobs and cut annual costs by $5 billion over the next three years.

“We don’t have to be the biggest company out there. We have to be the best,” Mr. Moynihan said.

The consulting firms enlisted to help with Project New BAC — EHS Partners and the Promontory Financial Group — are what are known in the industry as bank doctors. Financial firms often turn to these specialists in periods of crisis, seeking out their recommendations on deep and wide-ranging cuts to bolster revenue and eliminate unnecessary expenses.

Bad enough BOA, er, ‘allowed’ Countrywide to be palmed off on them but then they kept it…what the hell were they thinking?

Okay, let’s suppose there is still tons of ‘counter-party risk’ hidden under the Countrywide umbrella so scuttling it isn’t an option, is scuttling the economy the answer?

Left to our imagination is precisely what BOA is trying to be the best at, are they trying to be the best ‘smoking hole in the ground’? (Because that’s where they’re headed!)

Now wait a minute…if all money is ‘funny’ then why don’t the banks just print their way out of this? (which, on the surface, appears to be my solution, it isn’t!)

It may also puzzle some of you, considering my steadfastness in insisting all money is funny, that I also insist there is no possible solution to the current quandary (short of absolute Jubilee, the infamous ‘re-set button‘)

You might also be puzzled as to why I insist that a jubilee without altering the current set-up is nothing more than a temporary fix, in a matter of months we will be right back where we started…if all money is funny.

Upon reflection this is probably only going to muddy the waters worse than they already are.

Anthropologists gradually fanned out into the world and began directly observing how economies where money was not used (or anyway, not used for everyday transactions) actually worked. What they discovered was an at first bewildering variety of arrangements, ranging from competitive gift-giving to communal stockpiling to places where economic relations centered on neighbors trying to guess each other’s dreams. What they never found was any place, anywhere, where economic relations between members of community took the form economists predicted: “I’ll give you twenty chickens for that cow.” Hence in the definitive anthropological work on the subject, Cambridge anthropology professor Caroline Humphrey concludes, “No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing”

a. Just in way of emphasis: economists thus predicted that all (100%) non-monetary economies would be barter economies. Empirical observation has revealed that the actual number of observable cases—out of thousands studied—is 0%.

b. Similarly, the number of documented marketplaces where people regularly appear to swap goods directly without any reference to a money of account is also zero. If any sociological prediction has ever been empirically refuted, this is it.

Forgive me good citizen, adding to the mystery of ‘where did money come from?’ does nothing to clarify our current dire predicament.

It’s not how much money there is, it is money’s failure to circulate that has doomed our (current) civilization/social model!

Here is the problem there’s no way out of, short of cutting everybody a big fat check. When all/most of the money in an economy is ‘stuck’ at the top, printing more does you zero good.

Thus do I reiterate, there is NO WAY OUT (via ‘fuck you, pay me’ capitalism.)

The ‘mystery’ of money is actually solved by the leisure class who needed a way to pick the public’s pocket, an answer that should be obvious by the inevitable linkage between money and government.

Oh let us not forget that oxymoron ‘poor politician’, there’s no such thing.

In fact, Adam Smith was also ‘wrong’ in asserting that commerce/free trade produced the ‘wealth of nations’, the true wealth of nations flows from the public teat!

The biggest fortunes in the world were created at ‘the public’s expense’.

Even Bill Gates owes the bulk of his wealth to government contracts.

So with the recent statistic of the top 5% accounting for 40% of consumer spending should provide you with all of the evidence you need to understand what is wrong with our economy…

Ironically, it also contains the answer to what we need to do about it.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Cat/Bag...Out?

Greetings good citizen,

The ‘overPRICED’ stock markets continue to sell off around the globe as the hopelessly corrupt financial system finally springs out of the proverbial bag

I say incurable. This is the diagnosis of an irreversible disease. The corruption and collapse of the rule of law, in the financial sphere, is basically irreparable. It’s not just that restoring trust takes a long time. It’s that under the new technological order in this field, it can not be done. The technologies are designed to sow and foster distrust and that is the consequence of using them. The recent experience proves this, it seems to me. And therefore there can be no return to the way things were before. In other words, we are at the end of the illusion of a market place in the financial sphere.

Well, how about it good citizen, can you say FUBAR? (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair)

Dunno if I read a different version of this speech yesterday but I recall Mr. Galbraith (or maybe it was someone else’s commentary) concluding with the opinion that things were so far gone the only option remaining to us was to start over again from scratch.

Or was that just me reading my own beliefs into the statement?

No, it wasn’t me.

(The version I read last night was posted on ‘naked capitalism’, this link leads to ‘firedoglake’.)

And the two ‘copies’ ARE different…for reasons unknown.

Anyway, it’s one thing for a nobody like myself to opine that the global financial system is hopelessly corrupt but quite another to have ‘people of note’ parrot the same viewpoint.

The question, naturally, is what does this improbable development mean?

It certainly, as Mr. Galbraith points out, not news so why admit it now?

Perhaps it is me who is missing the point, Mr. G has taken on the mantle of ‘contrarian’ and ‘truthsayer’ so the Corporate media may well just ignore his assertions.

I suspect the real ‘revelation’ here is that the ‘economics community’ is now on record as admitting they teach bullshit in exchange for a paycheck.

At least in Mr. Galbraith’s opinion…

Until someone like Mr. Bernanke comes out an accuses the financial community of fraud, Mr. Galbraith’s opinion will remain just that, an opinion.

The fact that the ‘rest of the world’ agrees with him will be of no consequence.

Until the hangings start, then all of a sudden it will be ‘everybody knew and nobody bitched then!’

Which is to point out that by the time we get around to restoring justice the guilty will be falling back on the ‘timeliness defense’.

It’s not particularly productive to note that the timeliness defense didn’t do the Nazis much good.

Neither does the ‘everybody else was doing it’ defense.

(Which will likely prove ‘problematic’ when the time comes but I guess what I’m saying is THAT time IS coming!)

What remains to be seen is who will be thrown to the wolves in the initial ‘mock’ trials and who gets it in the ‘real’ trials…

Don’t doubt it for a second good citizen there will be two phases separated by an interval where nothing happens (improves) after the first trial.

The difference being is nothing will change after the ‘dupes’ are sacrificed, it will only be after the guilty are brought to justice that a new system will be put in place.

The danger lies in a new ‘proposal’ that is almost indistinguishable from what currently exists. Sadly most of you are so ‘financially illiterate’ that you will be unable to distinguish genuine change from the ‘cosmetic’.

Just as most of you are unaware that the ‘financial innovations’ the won Alan Greenspan a Knighthood and that Larry Summers praises so highly are indistinguishable from COUNTERFEITING!

But hey, when you get that far out there, ‘reality’ is whatever I say it is…(say the so-called ‘Masters of the Universe’)

Naturally, they were ‘st-runk’ out of their minds when they stumbled upon this interesting (and considerably self-centered) point of view, which is still no excuse.

It is one thing to spout nonsense and quite another to defend it as both real and rational.

Which is to direct your attention to ‘center stage’ where both dominate a highly improbable scene.

Left to our collective imagination is whether or not the ‘majority opinion’ will hasten the collapse of our civilization?

Like Porter Stanisbury says, it’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when?’

So what’s your poison, good citizen, whiskey or gunpowder?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Shovelin' 'it' against the Tide

Greetings good citizen,

I was watching TV last night (a re-run of an oldie but a goodie) when a commercial came on. The ‘come on’ was doom and gloom…well, you don’t dangle disaster in front of this kid without my taking a ‘free look’.

And what I found was this latest incarnation of the Tom Vu, ‘nothing down’ seminar only this time it might better be called what it really is, “Shoveling shit against the tide.”

Understand good citizen, the collapse of civilization is NOT AN INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY!

What Bubba wants is for as many of you as he can, er, ‘convince’ to send him (um, ironically HE isn’t refusing US dollars…yet) fifty dollars/euros/pesos or the equivalent in silver or gold in exchange for his ‘secrets’ for turning a profit from the coming shit-storm.

Ironically, Tom Vu didn’t make a fortune in Real Estate, he made it from chumps like you who forked over $600 to learn the ‘secrets’ of finding STUPID PEOPLE!

Which is to say it is amazing the major TV networks can charge candidates for political office enormous sums for campaign ads when you can buy airtime for a song?

Half of today’s network programming is ‘Paid Program’…which is pretty interesting considering the consumer, the ‘average one anyway, is broke.

Another disturbing symptom of our badly broken economy is the fact that high end retail is still raking it in hand over fist!

Yeah, it’s pay increases you’ll never see and lower prices you don’t get because that’s where Bilbo Baggins gets his from…

Moving on, we have this bull shit from the corporate owned media shining a spotlight on Repubikan efforts to boost, er, ‘support their local economies’.

“The whole landscape is changing — it’s hard to describe where it’s going to end up,” said Mark Lange, the executive director of the Edward Lowe Foundation, a nonprofit group in Cassopolis, Mich., that works with states and communities on economic development.

The chronic news-loop image of Washington stewing in its own sauce of budgetary dysfunction is part of the backdrop to the new laws, state officials and economists say.
Equally important is that numerous state governments across the nation shifted to Republican control in last November’s elections.

First question is, Where is this conservative Shangri La we were promised?

Don’t strain your eyes good citizen, it doesn’t exist.

Just like that imaginary land where the already rich legislators refuse their paychecks so they can govern out of the ‘goodness of their hearts’.

Which provides a perfect opportunity to remind you WHY government exists in the first place. It exists to PROTECT US from THEM!

It was established to protect the poor from the predations of the rich.

Under an effective government there would be no poverty, the poor wouldn’t exist.

How unfortunate is it that we are faced with a more basic problem, if we don’t correct the massive mismanagement currently underway we will be faced with the battle to save our species (and I’m not saying we’re out of those woods yet either!)

Under the somebody pinch me category (which is to say how quickly they forget!)

We have the following:

Though Beijing has few options other than to continue to buy United States Treasury bonds, Chinese officials are clearly concerned that the country’s substantial holdings of American debt, worth at least $1.1 trillion, are being devalued.

“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone,” read the commentary, which was published in Chinese newspapers.

Beijing, which did not release any other official statement on the downgrade, called on Washington to make substantial cuts to its “gigantic military expenditure” and its “bloated social welfare” programs.

The commentary serves as a sharp illustration of how the United States’ standing in the world is sliding and how China now views itself as ascendant.

So good citizen, how do YOU feel about a Chinese space station on the moon?

Worse good citizen, what do you suppose should be done to the TRAITORS who made this possible?

It’s the treason part of the puzzle that I think most of us find disturbing.

Let us rewind a little bit to the actual ‘solution’ to the problems facing our civilization, can ‘local legislators’ really ‘save the day?’

The REAL answer is YES! (But they will have to break dozens of national and international laws to do it.)

We start at ‘square one’, all economies are LOCAL! (regional might be a better descriptor as infinite redundancy isn’t particularly efficient.)

You start with erecting a ‘trade wall’ around your target population. You can only stabilize the situation ‘inside the loop’ (in a timely manner.)

The first ‘goal’ of your pilot group is ‘self-sufficiency’. They need to internally source everything they need for their continued survival.

Once the ‘target population’ is stabilized it can be enlarged by establishing a ‘national production plant’ for some universal product like renewable energy.

By and large ‘redundancy’ will be discouraged in favor of durability. The practice of ‘re-inventing’ the same product every few months is extremely wasteful…something to be avoided in the resource scarce future.

How ironic is it that the same few that are granted the ‘privilege’ of serving their community are in danger of becoming the first John Galts among us?

Once the protected areas are established the work of linking them up can begin.

While this is a ‘thumbnail’ of what needs doing, it is more of a plan than what currently exists.

Peak Energy spells the end of Global Trade, the sooner we get started, the better.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

And don’t even get me started…gold/silver ARE NOT money so having a boatload of it afterwards will do you ZERO good!

Under ASP all money is ‘intangible’ meaning you can’t hold it in your hand, so nobody can take it from you!