Holes

Greetings good citizen,

I am still struggling to adapt to a work routine (two years of being a slug doesn’t help) I am, er, ‘worried’ by this first sure sign of ‘economic recovery’.

Unemployment at 4-Year Low as U.S. Hiring Gains Steam
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The joblessness rate sank to 7.7 percent as 236,000 positions were added across a broad range of sectors, but analysts warned that federal budget cuts could slow the recovery.

Jobs Fuel Stock Rally
Economix: The Rise of Part-Time Work | Shrinking Government

Why would I be ‘worried’ good citizen? Because I’ve seen this before…many times.

They ship work overseas and the ‘customer base’ collapses. (The unemployed can’t afford your product.) As local economies ‘adjust’ (the unemployed pull up stakes and head to where the work is) ‘recovery’ is declared and they start farming out work again!

As you can see, the so-called ‘recovery’ is the final stage of this cycle.

Now how much longer can they keep this up is unknown, they’ve almost completely hollowed out the US and Japanese economies (and completely destroyed the Real Estate markets in both countries in the process.)

Now, I count myself as fortunate. I landed a ‘real job’; 40 hours with full benefits and not the part-time/no insurance or benefit purgatory that most of the ‘inexperienced’ find themselves condemned to.

And the looming energy crisis seems to be driving a movement to restore some local capacity in basic industries while there is still some talent who remembers how to do it!

Whether or not this movement can sustain itself when a renewed contraction strikes remains to be seen.

But we’re talking patterns here.

Now the ‘new normal’ can form the basis for a real recovery BUT you need to ‘let it ride’ and establish itself.

Why don’t I think this is what they have in mind for us good citizen?

Would that it were that we have finally reached the end of the global race to the bottom that was completely 'unnecessary’ in the first place.

But you know as well as I that this thing won’t be over until the oligarchy can protect itself from prosecution.

And short of wiping out an entire generation I don’t see how they can do that.

But it’s not stopping them from trying:

Blocked Bids to Fill Judgeships Stir New Fight on Filibuster
By CARL HULSE

Republican senators have so far kept President Obama from filling any of the four vacancies on the nation's most important appeals court, reviving talk of a change in Senate rules.

Graphic Graphic: Filling the D.C. Appeals Court

Our best, er, ‘indicator’ of social health has been our badly broken political system. The very fact that most of the commerce system is in private hands contradicts the precepts of a ‘democratic’ society.

We even have our ‘activist’ (conservo-loony) judges to prove this argument.

No civilization can stand without justice…sometimes they take a long time to fall but in the end the final destination remains unchanged.

The bad apples use the ‘holes’ left in the legal system by the founders to drive civilization off a cliff.

Why do those holes exist?

Because the founders didn’t want to leave themselves open to prosecution!

No society founded on theft can survive for long so how sad is it that the backbone of capitalism is the ‘fake ownership’ of that which belongs to us all?

Understand good citizen, the ‘well, it’s not yours’ argument leads directly back to the ‘why don’t I kill you where you stand?’ question.

Were I writing this for the firewalled version, there would be some mighty choice expletives employed here.

Especially surrounding the argument as to whether or not lynching someone for being a greedy blockhead is ‘justifiable’…

Or perhaps just for being a blockhead as we can observe in our final offering:

Law Backs Guns in Class for Teachers in South Dakota
By JOHN ELIGON

South Dakota became the first state to enact a law explicitly authorizing school employees to carry guns on the job, under a measure signed Friday by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Um, as I commented repeatedly and I’m sure you have noticed the same phenomenon in your own local news organs, the local rag exists to highlight the bad behavior of people in positions of public trust.

No doubt this is sometimes ‘witch hunts’ like the recent attack [by Fox News] on a local animal control officer but half of the stories center on malfeasance and inappropriate behavior of wide range of, er, ‘public servants’.

Now we hire (and supposedly psychologically screen) our police forces to carry guns…and our most recent nation headline shows once again that the ‘screening process’ isn’t ‘infallible’. [re: the Park Ranger who blew away the reality show host for being in the company of his wife while he was elsewhere.]

The ‘green-eyed monster’ is probably the most powerful of them all but it still provides an case in point. Kids are designed to frustrate you, even if you’re taught to deal with that, kids can ‘get under your skin and push your buttons’ because you’re in the protectors role.

They trust you not to harm them.

They even have the chutzpah to give you that knowing little smirk after they’ve twisted the knife and you’ve retaliated by suspending them (although you’d prefer to have had them drawn and quartered!)

Do you really want to add handguns into that volatile environment?

Not that we humans are overly smart…like the young lady who wanted to ‘play with the kitty’…what part of ‘wild’ didn’t she understand…because she sure understands it now!

Mother Nature is VERY ‘unforgiving’ and we need to respect that…or we will pay.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Problem, What Problem?

Greetings good citizen,

It turns out if you keep playing with the web address tool you can eventually get something it will accept…which is why the ‘new’ (firewall-less) site is not Civics 101 but Civics 202.

A Simple Plan remains behind the firewall for the moment while I let the new site ‘come up to speed’.

How ironic is it that A Simple Plan has twice the number of Russian readers than it has US?

They have seen the worst of both (economic operating systems) and are more open minded than the typical ‘patriotic’ US citizen.

Well, I’m going to see how the new site ‘draws’ before I open up the ‘main attraction.’

Those who have been ‘told’ they already live ‘in paradise’ are oddly resistant to new ideas, even new ideas that ‘fix’ long standing injustices in the old ways…

But we really start walking the tightrope when we get into determining ‘what is ‘injustice’ and ‘who decides’.

It is a mystery to no one that the One Percent decide, they are the sole arbiters of ‘what is just’

It is their viewpoint that YOU are incapable of understanding what it’s like to be them, you aren’t ‘smart’ enough (probably how wealth and brains came to be equated when they have nothing to do with one another!)

So what are to make of our first headline?

A Bold Dissenter at the Fed, Hoping His Doubts Are Wrong
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

Jeffrey M. Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in Virginia, has warned that the central bank’s efforts to stimulate growth are ineffective.

Economix Blog: The Great Dissenters

One need not be the president of a Federal Reserve Bank to realize (5 years after the fact) that the Fed’s ‘stimulus’ has had zero impact on ‘growth’. But that would be missing the whole point of calling the exercise ‘stimulus’.

What the Fed has been doing has nothing to do with ‘stimulating’ the global economy, what the Fed has done is to stabilize a badly broken global banking system.

How sad is it good citizen that despite trillions pumped in (and billions leaking out as ‘bonuses’) it is still broken beyond repair!

So what are we to make of this Fed President’s assertion?

He’s correct, but what are they supposed to do?

Cut off the stimulus and the global banking system collapses, pretty much immediately.

In a related story we are asked how ‘credible’ this situation is:

James A. Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington believes that recent online attacks on American banks have been the work of Iran.

Bank Hacking Was the Work of Iranians, Officials Say
By NICOLE PERLROTH and QUENTIN HARDY

The skill required to execute the attacks convinced American officials that Iran was behind them, likely in retaliation for economic sanctions and online attacks by the United States.

After being, er, ‘hoodwinked’ into a ten year long war by one desk of ‘the office for strategic studies’ chasing imaginary ‘Weapons of Mass destruction’ (for which no one was ever prosecuted, by the way.)

We are now being presented with ‘Quid Pro Quo’; we levied sanctions on Tehran so they ‘retaliated’ by hacking the (decidedly corrupt) US banking system…

With all of the chicanery going on in the TBTF banking network, how the heck can they tell? (It was ‘hacked’ and not outright theft or fraud?)

Short answer, they can’t!

For our next trick:

Former Analyst Cooperates in Insider Trading Case
By PETER LATTMAN 9:57 AM ET

Wesley Wang, a former analyst at SAC Capital Advisors, the hedge fund, has given federal agents the names of about 20 people that he said engaged in insider trading.

Or ‘touche’ as they say in fencing!

Of course ‘one incident’ isn’t proof that our whole financial network is corrupt…but it’s been more than one incident, in fact it’s been a long string of them ever since Saint Ronnie (Reagan) ‘privatized’ the healthcare system, unleashing a juggernaut!

Fund Titans Battle Over Herbalife
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED 29 minutes ago

Daniel S. Loeb’s Third Point disclosed that it had acquired more than 8.2 percent of the nutritional supplements company. That puts him at odds with his friend, William A. Ackman.

How sad is it good citizen that the ‘titans of capitalism’ have been reduced to squaring off over control of a MLM network?

Well, as they say, you just can’t make this stuff up. That said, how’s that future looking to you now?

HSBC Sale of $9.4 Billion Ping An Stake in Jeopardy
By DAVID BARBOZA and KEITH BRADSHER 57 minutes ago

The British bank HSBC’s bid to sell its stake in China’s Ping An group is in jeopardy after China Development Bank decided not to finance a large part of the transaction.

Um, not for nothing but 9 billion balloons is still a lot of cake even in these days when everything is measured in billions (millions are for pikers.) Worse, I’ve never heard of the Ping An group (but I’m going to assume it’s not the guys who make the popular brand of golf clubs…although I might be wrong!)

And speaking of trouble from across the Pacific:

A 787 had to be towed back to the gate Tuesday in Boston because of a fuel leak. On Monday, a parked 787 caught on fire.
Dreamliner Is Troubled by Questions About Safety
By JAD MOUAWAD 5:34 AM ET

All Nippon Airways canceled a domestic flight on Wednesday after a computer on board a 787 Dreamliner erroneously showed problems with the aircraft’s brakes.

Capitalism at its finest! Buyer BEWARE!!!

Once again we see the folly of ‘sold to the lowest bidder’ when it comes to producing complex objects that must work in harmony with one another!

The Dreamliner was 3 YEARS behind schedule due to the inability of the engineers to deal with problems continents away. Sometimes ‘tele-conferencing’ just doesn’t cut it.
But hey that’s capitalism for ya, if the product doesn’t float/fly it’s not management’s fault, they aren’t engineers!

Um, does anyone else have a problem with this?

I have no need to fly…and for that I am grateful!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Class confusion...

Greetings good citizen,

Were someone to ask you what you thought (believed) your ‘class membership’ was, how would you answer?

Tragically, many of you would mistakenly identify yourself as ‘middle class’, hell that’s the catch phrase all of the politicians use…(so it must be true!)

If you’re homeless you MIGHT suck it up and admit to being ‘poor’ (not that this helps or proves anything, circumstances change all of the time.)

Unsurprisingly, there is just as much confusion/mis-identification when it comes to accurately classifying the ‘upper classes!

Life Among the Plutocrats -- What Unimaginable Wealth Does to a Person
They control our politics, shape our societies, outsource our jobs.

January 4, 2013 |

Reviewed:Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, by Chrystia Freeland (Doubleday, Canada 2012)

Last year the Occupy movement brought the subject of inequality into public debate, and especially the inequality between those of us in the 99 per cent and the happy few in the one per cent. But Chrystia Freeland has been studying the happy few for years, and has spent many hours talking with some of their most famous and powerful members.

The result is a book full of surprises and insights. Today's plutocrats are the latest variation on an old theme, and at the same time they're strikingly new in many ways.

Societies have supported plutocratic classes at least since ancient Rome, and the Gilded Age of the US after the Civil War presaged our own: A rising class of self-made men, imaginative exploiters of new technology and wider trade. Then it was the telegraph and the railroad; now it's the internet and the container ship.

So, now we have ‘plutocrats’ being (mis) identified by their tychoonish traits rather then their inherited and very much ‘entrenched wealth’.

So Joe Bootstrapper is a ‘plutocrat’ (which is antithetical to the term ‘self-made man’.)

It is not my intention to kick the author in the shins for abusing a term, I regularly do it myself.

My point, such as it is, is how muddy the waters of ‘class’ have become. Most people ‘self-identify’ as being ‘middle class’ whether they are or they aren’t.

Like I said, you only ‘might’ get a homeless person to admit to being poor, just as you’d be equally as hard-pressed to get a ‘well-born’ individual to admit he was a ‘plutocrat’.

S/He’ll readily admit to being ‘upper class’ but vehemently deny being a ‘One Percenter’ (given the amount of bad press associated with the term recently.)

While the real fox in the hen house is the ONE TENTH of One Percent!

What do we call them (besides peckerheads) if not ‘plutocrats’?

Most would agree that ‘plutocrat’ is pretty much interchangable with ‘oligarch’ as both terms exemplify entrenched wealth AND power…both political and legal…(such as it is.)

Perhaps it is my personal conviction that ‘all money is funny’ that is giving me this quaint ‘comprehension problem’…

While money has often been equated in the ignorant person’s mind with power, money is actually meaningless. Tens of trillions of it can be whipped up instantly with the stroke of a pen! (Our failed banking industry has proven that by ‘conjuring’ a quadrillion dollars US into existence out of thin air!)

Just because the bought and paid for corporate owned media ignores this doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Nope, the ‘real problem’ is our house is burning down around us and while we all know this, nobody is doing anything to put the fire out…

Soon all that will be left are ashes…and memories.

Why is this seeming unthinkable thing happening?

Could it be because we have surrounded ourselves with traitors (who are in it for themselves) and our so-called ‘academics’ don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground?

How stunningly stupid is it that the ‘smartest guys in the room’ are running around with their hair on fire?

Re-directing once again, I am compelled to ask how we can expect to solve the problem if we can’t agree on the cause?

The OWS movement put the One Percent into the crosshairs…but failed to pull the trigger.

Now we have works like this one attempting to muddy the waters by calling innovators ‘plutocrats’ simply because they’re rich…

Mr. Zuckerburg is ‘rich’ but he’s hardly the ‘menace to society’ most of his ‘cousins’ at Harvard are.

In fact you have to wonder just how successful Facebook would have been if it hadn’t gotten its start in the ‘plutocracy’ (entrenched climate of wealth and power) that IS Harvard?

Money does not a ‘plutocrat’ make.

In the end it’s about old family ties and the ability to bend reality to your liking that makes one a ‘plutocrat/oligarch’.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Justice & Civilization

Greetings good citizen,

As expected, the fiscal cliff turned into an easily surmounted molehill as the Senate did what the Republican controlled House refused to do:

Senate Passes Legislation to Allow Taxes on Affluent to Rise
By JONATHAN WEISMAN

The Senate easily passed the measure, which also put off cuts in spending, early on Tuesday after the deadline on the so-called fiscal cliff had passed. Republican House aides said a vote Tuesday was possible.

Voting on New Years Day? Is this so the Republicans can claim they weren’t there when those sneaky liberals raised taxes on their constituents?

The ‘lame-stream media’ has to quit playing the majority of the population for chumps. We all know why it’s going down this way, to provide the media with the claim that the nation is more divided than it really is.

That little lie is key to maintaining ‘the tyranny of the minority’. A full half of us have to be A.) clinically insane or B.) impossibly stupid to believe half of the shit the Corporate owned media claims.

Speaking of ‘Barking Mad’:

Shares End Higher on Hope for Fiscal Deal
By NATHANIEL POPPER

Stocks surged after reports emerged that an agreement might be near in Washington.

As I mentioned yesterday, markets climbed ‘irrationally’ after falling below the 13,000 point mark for the fourth time in as many weeks.

Again, the significance is mostly psychological.

Speaking of ‘Psycho’:

A Year of Market Gains, Despite Turmoil
By FLOYD NORRIS

Stock markets in Europe and the United States turned out to be good investments in 2012, even as governments battled economic problems that threatened disaster.

The thing to keep in mind good citizen is how one thing and one thing only enabled the thieves to, er, ‘dummy up’ the markets and it is something I am constantly reminding you of:

ALL MONEY IS FUNNY!

This ‘success’ they speak of is simply moving the goal posts around to reflect a different picture that doesn’t necessarily reflect ‘reality’.

And speaking of reality:

Amichai Shulman, the chief technology officer at Imperva. The data security firm recently found that antivirus software programs perform poorly against new viruses.
Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt
By NICOLE PERLROTH

Consumers and businesses spend billions of dollars a year on antivirus software, but these programs rarely block freshly minted strains, because the malware creators move too fast.

Um, probably wouldn’t be a good time to bring up the subject of ‘why’ malware developers do what they do, would it? It’s because the hackers pay handsomely…something they wouldn’t be able to do under A Simple Plan ‘cuz money wouldn’t work like that anymore.

Our next headline is creepy all by itself because the ‘as compared to what?’ question is left unaddressed:

Chinese Manufacturing Sector Expands for a 3rd Month
By BETTINA WASSENER

The results of a closely watched survey underline the view that the world’s second-largest economy has settled into a mild rebound that is likely to extend into 2013.

STOP!

A ‘rebound’ that is ‘likely to extend’ into 2013? What does this line tell you good citizen?

It tells me the global economy is fubar.

If you start stacking up the implications of this statement a chilling reality is revealed.

Or perhaps we need look no further than our final headline:

Visa Issue in China Forces Out Times Reporter
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Visa troubles for the reporter and for the new Beijing bureau chief of The Times come amid government pressure on the foreign media over investigations into the finances of senior Chinese leaders.

I know this is the first time (this year) I will suggest such impossibilities as corruption on a global level, indicating collusion around the globe to rob civilization blind…simply because they CAN!

Understand that these, er, ‘miscreants’ have no intention of ‘getting caught’ or paying the price for their crimes, they’d sooner turn the world to glass.

In fact, I suspect nuclear blackmail is one of the key levers they use to keep the authorities at bay.

But the failure of justice is the failure of society, there is no ‘two ways’ about it.

More so than ‘love and marriage’, you truly can’t have one without the other.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Making a list...

Greetings good citizen,

Considering the increasingly fragile socio-economic situation we can only be puzzled by this morning’s headline in today’s business section of the NY Times:

Stocks Start With a Gain
By REUTERS 9:37 AM ET

Wall Street opened higher as it enters a traditionally quiet period heading into the end of the year.

Irrationally, the market is up almost 150 points this morning alone and almost 250 points over its recent lows.

Have YOU heard ANY economic ‘good news’ that might justify the trillions of dollars in stock valuations this translates into?

Nope, you didn’t miss it because it don’t exist.

While I’m tempted to go screaming off the reservation on a tirade blasting public apathy over this blatant theft…it will do no good, so I’ll shut up (about this particular topic.)

More succinctly, I think you all know a rising market by no means indicates the salvation of our civilization.

Quite the contrary in fact.

In a rather ‘fitting’ article for the season that has become so closely associated with ‘conspicuous consumption’ we have this tidbit for your consideration

6 Things Money Shouldn’t Be Able to Buy

1. Prison Cell Upgrade

In America’s two-tiered justice system, the rich get access to high-priced attorneys and special privileges, even in the form of a more comfortable prison cell.

2. Internships

It has long been easier for children of the wealthy to secure internships in hot industries, whether through the indirect financial contributions of their parents or the luxury of being able to take unpaid positions. But outright purchase? That's the new normal.

3. Leadership Positions in Congress

No other legislature in the developed world does it. But in America, congressional parties now post prices for key slots on committees. It wasn’t always so, but in the last few decades, the old seniority system that used to govern leadership selection and committee assignments has been swept away. As political scientist Thomas Ferguson explains, “In its place, the parties copied practices of big-box retailers like Walmart, Best Buy or Target…You want it – you buy it.”

4. Airport Security Checks

While the folks in coach are standing in long lines, wealthy customers zip through security at lightning speed. Why? Because they can afford to.

5. Doctor’s Cell Phone Number

Our private healthcare system has clearly failed us. We have by far the most expensive system in the developed world, and many of us still can’t seem to get basic services or see a doctor when we need one. But the doctor is always in if you’ve got the dough.

6. Human Organs

It used to be considered an urban legend, but yes, there is a robust black market for human organs which often involves violence. Criminals in the organ trade can make many times what they pay; a kidney, for example, may cost $10,000 and be sold for up to $150,000.

I love lists like this because of what they omit.

Before I go ‘off the reservation’, do you find the above list to be fairly inclusive, touching on the ‘high point’s of what has become ‘socially acceptable’?

Because naturally ALL OF THE ABOVE would be illegal under A Simple Plan.

How fortunate is it that the last would be impossible…

In a world full of unjustly rich and extreme desperation don’t you think it’s time we ‘re-examine’ the how and why we do what we do?

How fucking sad is it that we have morphed into ‘Libertarian paradise’ thanks to thirty years of morally bankrupt Republican leadership?

What does it tell you when we see the marriage of the concepts ‘If you don’t have a job then society has no use for you’ joined with the idea of ‘paying’ for work…

Where does that leave you?

Could you afford to ‘buy’ your job?

(If you could your employer would be out of business! Chew on that!)

Oh, got that covered…you’re ‘self-employed’.

Guess what? Self-employed with no paying customers is no different than being ‘unemployed’.

Like I said, the above list is a good start but it should be MUCH longer.

Can you think of anything you’d add?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Not I

Greetings good citizen,

The NYSE opened moments ago but it seems ‘the action’ is in Washington this week rather than on Wall Street.

Where we are, once again, having a ‘fight’ that shouldn’t be happening.

DECEMBER

Democrats led by Obama and Republicans led by House Speaker John Boehner say it's critical to reach a deal this month. Yet both sides appear dug in over taxes. And their two plans are far apart on how much to cut spending while the economy is still recovering from the last recession.

So far, Boehner said, "we're nowhere." If compromise were easy for this bunch, they wouldn't be in this jam. A good chunk of the fiscal cliff — the automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester" — is an artificial deadline created by Congress in hopes of forcing itself to come up with a deficit-cutting plan. It arrives at the same time as the expiration of the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts and other temporary tax breaks scheduled to end unless Congress extends them. Together the taxes and cuts would equal close to $700 billion in deficit reduction over 2013.

Congress could vote to override all this and essentially freeze taxes and spending where they are now while the economy heals. But Obama and lawmakers, especially Republicans bent on budget-cutting, see the fiscal cliff as the critical moment to overcome inertia on the nation's long-term debt crisis.

How ironic is it good citizen that, if the two parties involved were on more ‘amicable terms’ NONE OF THIS would be happening?

But no, the Republican’s (suffering from their usual ‘post election amnesia’) have decided to make the rest of the nation regret allowing Republicans a place on the ballot!

(We should seriously test these people, if not for psychosis then for competency!)

Do we need to pass legislation that bars psychopaths from holding elected office?

WHO would disagree with mandated testing? (Besides Republican’s and their backers?)

Same thing with the ‘fiscal cliff’.

Although perhaps the first question that we’d need to address is WHY we keep returning to this same spot every few months?

Is it because the government is incapable of ‘managing money’ or is it this broken economic model the One Percent prevents us from abandoning?

Understand good citizen, the only time a nation EVER ‘pays off’ its debts is when it is liquidated!

Supposedly the former Soviet Union drown in a sea of ‘red ink’, which ‘disappeared’ once the Soviet Union was no more. (One of those weird things regarding changes in management…even when the old boss becomes the new boss…and nothing but the packaging changes.)

Did I mention that our civilization is SEVERELY ‘mis-managed’?

And the only way to correct this is to throw out the old regime and establish a new way of doing things.

It’s not that hard and we DON’T need to re-invent the wheel, we just need a new way of restoring justice, perhaps we can even reach that surprisingly elusive goal of ‘justice for all’.

But no, we keep letting the psychopaths among us decide what needs doing and how it needs to be done.

Did you know there’s a test for that now?

Have YOU noticed the corporate owned media is ignoring this important medical breakthrough?

Being capable of screening for psychosis HUGE! It SHOULD alter the course of human destiny…unless the psychopaths are allowed to, er, ‘prevent’ their detection (and summary demotion/exile from society.)

But I digress…

More disturbing to me is the ‘line in the sand’ over ‘new taxes’.

How about going back to Old taxes?

A MAJORITY of the nation agrees that the >One Percent isn’t paying their ‘fair share’ (neither at tax time nor at the payroll office.)

Those millions they keep for themselves are all raises YOU never got and lower prices you don’t pay.

WHY do we let these people FUCK us like this? (Worse, why does the government let them get away with it?)

Is it because someday we hope to be able to fuck our fellow citizens the exact same way?

(That’s the ‘excuse’ the conservo-whackos are sticking with…we all want to fuck the public so we can be rich! [thus do we deserve the screwing we get!])

Is this the kind of society you WANT to belong to?

Not I said little goat gruff!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Justice?

Greetings good citizen,

Here it is fifteen minutes before markets open and I’m back to old tricks of posting first thing (Well, it’s not the VERY FIRST thing I do…) and, as usual, today’s top story, a veritable outrage, is reported without rancor, in fact, it has become so common that it now seems this is how what passes for our ‘justice system’ operates.

Pay the fine and PROMISE to NEVER do it again…although, if memory serves this is the umpteenth time this particular miscreant has been fined for fiscal ‘wrong-doing’…

Which is to ask, good citizen, Where does it stop?

TOP NEWS
DealBook
UBS Is Reported to Be Near a Deal on Rate Rigging
By BEN PROTESS and MARK SCOTT

The Swiss banking giant UBS is expected to pay American and British fines of more than $450 million to settle claims that it reported false rates to increase its profit, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Worse good citizen, the ‘whopping’ 450 million dollar fine is just a fraction of the damage their falsehood has inflicted, so calling this justice is really a stretch.

Push come to shove they should pull the bastard’s charter and lock the doors!

Which, naturally, shines the spotlight on the other side of this situation, a society being held hostage by obvious criminals because of the JOBS that would be lost if justice were served!

But wait good citizen, it gets better!

Robert Greenwald, head of the progressive internet video and documentary film company, Brave New Films, recently traveled to Pakistan, supported financially by hundreds of BNF donors, to witness first hand the stories of families who have had innocent loved ones killed by U.S. drone attacks. Greenwald is challenging both the morality and the factual effectiveness of the U.S drone program as we learn more about the failures and questionable policies. The U.S. claims that drone missiles are aimed at potential terrorists but because the ground rules of who can be targeted is both vague and has been loosened, the number of innocents being killed has risen sharply. Furthermore, the information that is used to target people appears to be the result of a system of bribery at the local level, which is of questionable reliability.

It wasn't until April 2012 that John Brennan, White House counter-terrorism adviser admitted for the first time publicly, that our government has been using drones in Pakistan, and later Yemen, to attempt to kill those they consider as potential terrorists. This was the first public acknowledgment, despite the fact that the program had been going for at least several years. Still far more information was withheld in Brennan’s announcement about the program, than was revealed.

So we have bankers playing ‘pick your own fine’ and we have the military, whacking people indiscriminately and calling them ‘terrorists’ after the fact.

Worse, the average individual is powerless to ‘gainsay’ any of this, the eight hundred pound gorilla of ‘national security’ is wheeled out and paraded up and down the square and nothing gets done about it!

Which, if you have even one oar in the water, displays what a disturbing degree the ‘lack of accountability’ has taken on.

How long can you hide atrocities behind the veil of ‘national security’?

And at what point does it become, er, ‘unsafe’ to remain a member of such a society?

(Asked the man who is already living in a society that has suspended his right to review the evidence against him (habeas corpus.)

Hell while we’re shoveling dirt into the Republican’s grave we should include the other thing ‘Bush the lesser’ will go into the history books for and that is for abolishing the federal statute against usury!

But if we decide to document the crimes of the conservo-whackos we will need a lot more space and time than I’m willing to devote to the task!

But the real issue here is how it has become a ‘non-crime’ to be murdered by remote control…which weirdly started with the Israelis and their use of helicopter gunships to ‘assassinate’ political opponents.

The fact that they ‘bought’ those gunships from the US is just a massive coincidence…(or so they’d have you believe.)

Which is to roll this dialogue back to yesterday’s post and speculate just how many members of the political process as well as those in the military who would be found ‘unfit to serve’ if they were to be tested for the genetic markers that indicate psychopathy?

The idiots in charge of the drone program are most definitely ‘emotionally hard of hearing’ if not completely deaf…an accusation that could be fairly leveled at all who have ‘gone along’ with this atrocity in silence as the program has expanded.

Well, before a Scud come cruising through my window I’m going to post this bad boy so YOU get to consider it and it doesn’t remain a sordid bit of mental masturbation.

You know and I know something needs to be done to put a stop to this!

This is a fine time to realize that neither you nor I have the tools to put that action in motion.

Go ahead and call your congressman, let me know how that works out for you…

It won’t…and I’m not psychic (proven fact given my numerous failed predictions!)

The system, no matter how you slice it, don’t work…but you didn’t need me to tell you that.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bondage

Greetings good citizen,

Did the markets close ‘up’ yesterday because this morning the Dow was back over 13,000 for no reason whatsoever! (Which is to assume that the markets ‘rallied’ yesterday towards the end of the session.)

And yeah, people are back to their old tricks, going ‘in the hole’ for Christmas because they believe the electoral rhetoric that assured them the economy was ‘improving’, when it isn’t.

So, in a not too surprising ‘repeat’ of the old ‘boom-bust’ cycle, people will spend what they don’t have followed by a renewed raft of foreclosures/repossessions…and we’ll all be the worse for it.

But as Jon Stewart (of Comedy Central fame) sarcastically put it, at least there isn’t a bill of sale with your name on it (yet)

I’m sitting here wearing clothes made by modern-day slaves and probably so are you. I’m lit by studio lights assembled in countries where workers who try to organize are imprisoned, as are many of the lights in your home.

We rationalize all the products of distant slaves we use – after all, we don’t have to look into their faces like Jefferson did – but it’s still just a rationalization.

The stark reality is that we in America didn’t “end” slavery. We simply exported it.

And it’s so much more comfortable for us to criticize Jefferson and his peers for agonizing over – but still using – slave labor 200 years ago, when we don’t have to look into the faces of today’s slaves who are toiling and dying at this very moment to sustain our lifestyles.

It’s the ugly truth good citizen, the one they don’t want you to know about…that ALL CAPITALISM is ‘predatory’ (which is why it NEEDS slavery to operate!)

You education ‘omits’ this basic fact because the only thing separating you from one of those slaves is a law the fuckers can rip up whenever it suits them.

And when they decide to rip up that law, you instantly become something the oligarchs’ fear more than anything else; you become somebody with nothing left to lose!

Worse good citizen, every day we inch closer and closer to the day when the slave market re-opens and your kids go up on the block to the ‘highest bidder’.

What are you going to do when that day comes?

Grab your favorite ‘peace now’ banner and go march in front of the Statehouse?

Will the cops NOT arrest you for creating a ‘public nuisance’ because your cause is just and they know it?

(They will if they want to keep their jobs!)

You’ve been around long enough to know how this fuckaroo works. First you have to act up and then you have to take out whoever tries to stop you…because there’s no such thing as ‘half-way’.

People ‘died’ fighting for the forty-hour workweek. They were ‘killed’ (read murdered) by guys who were ‘just doing their job’.

It’s an indelible stain on our society that those murderers were never prosecuted for their crimes, it also makes the beginning of the end of what passes for justice…pretty much anywhere on this planet.

Which is to point out the unethical exploitation of others through money is another form of ‘slavery’ we aren’t even close to ending.

Capitalists don’t like it when we refer to ourselves as ‘wage slaves’…because it’s TRUE!

Capitalists, like cops are NOT you ‘friends’. They do what they do because that’s what they are paid to do. (They try to trick you because it makes their job that much easier, once the key turns in the cell it’s ‘fuck you, idiot!’)

Ironically, A Simple Plan and the Human Anti-Exploitation Law will be the first time in human history that slavery will be truly outlawed…and attempting to ‘enslave’ anyone is an instant one way trip to exile (a decidedly nasty place.)

Naturally there will be those ‘twisted’ bastards who will charge that those who run A Simple Plan are ‘exploiting’ the rest of us; but their ‘compensation’ is not under their control so their actions don’t benefit themselves personally.

But I digress…

Once again we should flip this issue over and explore the ‘real implications’ of Modern Slavery.

Why would Bwana ‘hire you’ for a salary he can keep in his pocket when he can ‘buy’ a slave for a fraction of that?

And when the slave is ‘used up’ he just cuts it loose to fend for itself, what happens to it after that isn’t their problem…just like employees!

Yet another ‘plague’ visited upon our society by rapacious capitalists…and our ‘legal system’ turns a blind eye to the problem.

Well good citizen, what are you sitting there for, you didn’t win Powerball and you’re already a month late to the revolution!

Snap to it!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Beneath it all...

Greetings good citizen,

Every few months I feel compelled to restate the mission of this blog, which, due to its subject matter, is widely considered a ‘Doom and Gloom’ site.

How sad is it that it isn’t my purpose to frighten anyone nor am I intent upon twisting your mind toward my way of seeing things. (Although part of my mission involves, er, ‘educating’ you in the finer points of my creation, A Simple Plan.)

That said, some of you might find that education bordering on ‘indoctrination’.

I can be rabid when the feeling moves me and I’m forever racing ‘off the reservation’, a fault I readily admit.

Um, to opine that my posts are, er, ‘unbiased’ would be exactly that, an opinion. We’re all biased and there’s no getting away from that fact.

The editor of the local rag was ‘editorializing’ on the subject of biased fact checkers just last night…and you know why the conservative liar was crying about that subject, don’t you?

Yes indeed good citizen, the closer we get to the election the more it looks as though Ol’ Mitt is gonna pull off an ‘upset victory’ much Like W. winning Florida due to ‘hanging chads’.

And they’ll pin it on ‘waitresses’!

But I digress.

We all know those waitresses are working in dives across the nation, just waiting for a One Percenter (like Mitt) to waltz in and sweep them away from the drudgery of being a working class drone.

Billionaire, Princess, same difference.

And, bizarrely, YOU are expected to BELIEVE that it was that sort of BULLSHIT that swung the election in favor of the man who gave HALF OF US the fucking MIDDLE FINGER less than a month ago!

I don’t know how they expect this to play in Peoria but I’m fairly certain it won’t go down well with the decidedly non-conservative 80% of the NATION!

Especially when we have seen first hand how the bullshit with the banks went down.

But again, I digress.

Let us return to the topic that underlies the foundation of modern civilization, a topic that will ultimately bring an end to life as we have come to know it, peak oil and those whose power derives from fossil fuel.

We seem to hear two versions of the story of limited oil supply:

1. The economists’ view, saying that the issue is a simple problem of supply and demand. Substitution, higher prices, demand destruction, greater efficiency, and increased production of oil at higher prices will save the day. [HA!]

2. A version of Hubbert’s peak oil theory, saying that world oil production will rise and at some point reach a plateau and begin to decline, because of geological depletion. The common belief is that the rate of decline will be determined by geological considerations, and will roughly match the rate at which production increased.

In my view, neither of these views is correct. My view is a third view:

3. An adequate supply of cheap ($20 or $30 barrel) oil is no longer available, because most of the “easy to extract” oil is gone. The cost of extracting oil keeps rising, but the ability of oil-importing economies to pay for this oil does not. There are no good low-cost substitutes for oil, so substitution is very limited and will continue to be very limited. The big oil-importing economies are already finding themselves in poor financial condition, as higher oil prices lead to cutbacks in discretionary spending and layoffs in discretionary industries.

The government is caught up in this, as layoffs lead to more need for stimulus funds and for payments to unemployed workers, at the same time that tax revenue is reduced. There can be a temporary drop in oil prices (as there was in late 2008), as recession worsens, but eventually demand rises again, oil prices rise again, and the pattern of layoffs and increased governments financial problems occurs again. [snip]

What the Economists’ View Misses

The economists’ view misses the fact that it is external energy that makes the economy operate the way it does. (See my earlier posts, here, here and here.) If energy products are higher priced, energy importers can afford less of them, and there is a tendency of their economies to shrink back to what their economies can afford—fewer employed workers and fewer government programs. I talk about the connection between employed workers and energy consumption in The Close Tie Between Energy Consumption, Employment and Recession.

Back to the beginning, where I was explaining the objective of this blog.

I can’t help it if the truth sucks…that said I am also not telling you that ‘all is lost’ (although it might be if we don’t, er, ‘rid’ ourselves of those who were born thinking they are the only ones who deserve to live here. The rest of us are ‘excess baggage’ to be disposed of however and whenever necessary.

Worse, the only thing saving our sorry asses in their indecision about how many of us to keep around!

Although there is a building consensus that they should exterminate us wholesale and then let the few that survive breed the ‘servant class’ back up to full strength.

Pretty gloomy, but it doesn’t have to turn out this way.

There are alternatives to the eminent return of a ‘slave economy’ and the bloodshed this will cause.

We just need to bring everyone associated with this ‘New World Order’ (more commonly known as ‘The One Percent’) to Justice…after we purge the now corrupt beyond belief justice system.

The situation IS salvageable…but you need to have faith.

It all starts with small steps and A Simple Plan points the way!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Trivia!

Greetings good citizen,

Okay, break time’s over. Everybody back your heads!

Taking a day off can be liberating, gives you time to put things into perspective…and a wandering mind like mine is always tilting at windmills…when it isn’t considering some mighty outrageous ‘whys’.

Like how our, er, ‘cleverly designed’ political system doesn’t permit us to alter anything about our life…and this is used to brew contempt, strong and hot, against the opposing political ideology.

When in fact it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the oligarchy, our supposedly long deposed Kings and Queens!

"What are our leaders doing?" Isn’t an unfair question. We are living in a world being devastated by climate change while our civilization’s ‘founding premise’ (cheap and abundant energy) races towards exhaustion.

And our politicians are locked in mortal ideological battle, will the Democrats and their wishful half-measures restore prosperity or will (more) Republican tax cuts (for those who need them least) do the job?

Because we all know the answer is neither.

The ONLY thing that will restore ‘viability’ to our civilization is a radical shift away from the predatory mis-management of what remains.

You had best believe good citizen that the clock is ticking

George Orwell argued that pessimism is reactionary because it makes the very idea of improving the world impossible. I found that whether or not we believe we can change the world, even in a small way, acting as if we can is the healthiest emotional stance to take in the face of injustice and destruction.

------

"He who fights the future has a dangerous enemy," said Søren Kierkegaard. Life is stressful. We think something is wrong with us, but the problems are endemic and systemic. As a people, we've lost our grounding in deep time and in our place. At root, our problems are relationship problems. We have a disordered relationship with the web of life.

Right now, the more we connect the dots between events, the more frightened we become. This reminds me of a night I slept in a tent with three of my grandchildren. Kate was 6, Aidan was 4, and Claire was 2. Claire and Aidan were blissfully happy. They snuggled and listened to the sounds of the cicadas and night birds. Meanwhile, Kate kept telling me she was scared and that she wanted to sleep in the house. Stupidly, I chided her for her fears. I asked, "Kate, you are the big sister and the oldest. Why can't you be as brave as your sister and brother?" She wailed, "Nonna, they're little. They don't know enough to be scared!"

These days, I often feel like Kate did that night. I know too much about deforestation, nuclear power plants, our tainted food supply, and our collapsing fisheries. Sometimes I wish I didn't know all these things. But if we adults don't face and come to grips with our current reality, who will?

Personally, this now ancient theme of ‘Grandma has a wake up call’ is getting more than a little thin.

But it does highlight an interesting point. Why do we ignore the obvious and not object when we are misdirected with the trivial?

Who gives a crap about gays marrying one another? Let ‘em, it’s not the sort of thing our legislators should be wasting their time on.

Except…the pinheaded ‘job creators’ don’t want to give these people the same ‘benefits’ that they increasingly aren’t giving their, er, ‘straight’ employees.

Remember good citizen, at the end of the day ALL MONEY IS FUNNY!

This screaming about ‘the cost’ is BULLSHIT! Just as it is proving out that austerity measures actually do more harm than good.

It is also becoming obvious that income inequality is caustic to civilization as well…as we watch whole segments of our society crumble.

Keep the, er, ‘uncertain’ value of money in mind good citizen as we take a moment to explore why the US has the LARGEST CRIMINAL POPULATION ON THE PLANET!

This is the sort of bullshit that happens when an entire civilization is ‘managed’ for the benefit of a few…

Most of you are aware that it cost a solid, er, ‘middle class income’ (twice as much as the average working class person earns per year) to incarcerate anyone, per year.

One percent of this nation’s population is behind bars and more than half of them are there on ‘drug related’ charges.

Wouldn’t it be ‘more intelligent’ to ‘manage’ this problem rather than foolishly pretending that prohibition works?

I am fully aware that the ‘for profit’ prison industry is a premier ‘conservo-whacko job creation program’ writ large…

And I have already pointed to the ‘correlation’ between conservatism and dope (which oddly, explains much!)

Don’t even get me started on the population explosion that the oligarchs like to pretend isn’t happening…because the more of us there are, the more likely it is that we will kill one another off.

That’s the ‘truth’ behind the push to reverse Roe v. Wade. ‘Let ‘em drown in their own cesspool’.

How retarded is it to think their mercenaries can/will protect them when that cesspool bursts…

It won’t be just OUR money that goes bad when the bottom drops out.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Sustainable

Greetings good citizen,

After a positive start and a generally positive performance put in by markets around the world, the Dow closed down 20 points today giving the NYSE a ‘mixed’ finish…the Nasdaq was also down but the S&P 500 was positive…

But this is trivia. None of it matters if we can’t feed ourselves or get what we need to where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

Thus we will need to relearn the lessons of ‘redundancy’ and ‘backing things up’ when we implement our new, sustainable way of life.

And this is not a question of ‘if’, it is a question of ‘when’.

Because the day is (rapidly) coming when it will no longer be possible to pick up the phone and have a replacement what-have-you on your doorstep tomorrow.

The trains travel on a schedule and it won’t speed up just because YOU needed it yesterday.

While you’ll still be able to ‘occasionally’ catch the jet stream and cross the country in a couple of hours, it may take you more time than just riding the prevailing winds to get there.

Then there’s the altitude factor. A lot to be considered when you ‘ride’ the wind rather than just push your way through it.

If I’ve been on a kick lately, the ticking clock would be one of the mainstays. The days of society running on fossil fuels are coming to a close…quicker than you think.

Again, we are NOT ‘out’ but the ‘infamous they’ are going to start choking off the supply so people will, er, ‘get used to’ a future that has less available energy.

I can’t stress enough that the ‘transition’ from a fossil fuel driven society BACK to a more primitive way of life needs to be very carefully managed indeed.

As expected, the deficit and debt were both discussed in the first presidential debate on domestic policy. However, despite this year’s endless American summer and a devastating drought that won’t leave town , climate change wasn’t. What would you bet that it won’t be a significant topic in the final debate on foreign policy either? Only one conclusion seems reasonable: climate change has no place on this American planet.

So far, both presidential campaigns indicate as much. To a wave of laughter in the final moments of his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Mitt Romney mocked the subject, linking it negatively to the president. (“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise... is to help you and your family.”) Obama simply avoided the subject in his. And that pretty much sums up the situation to date.

Though opinion polls indicate that undecided voters want to hear the candidates’ thoughts on climate change, I’m hardly the first person to note that the subject has gone MIA in the campaign season. Noam Chomsky , the Nation magazine , Salon’s Andrew Leonard , and Joe Romm of Climate Progress , among others, have all commented strikingly on its disappearance. But here’s the curious thing: if American debt and deficit happen to be your worry, then climate change should be your subject.

In response to a question about the deficit in the first debate, Romney typically said , “I think it's, frankly, not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation and they're going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives.” Not a bad point really. Who wants to pile an unbearable burden of debt on future generations who won’t be able to work their way out from under it?

Here would be my follow-up question, however: In that case, what’s “moral” about doing exactly that in terms of the planet -- ensuring the release of such quantities of greenhouse gasses that the global “debt” will increase staggeringly? And here’s the kicker: unlike a financial debt, the planet, the atmosphere, nature, physics will not, as Bill McKibben often points out , be prepared to negotiate a deal. If Argentina or even the U.S. goes bankrupt, there is always an imaginable path back. If humanity goes bankrupt on this planet, it’s another story entirely.

Maybe, in fact, the debates have it right: climate change isn’t either a domestic or a foreign policy issue. It’s the whole ball of wax. The total thing.

Um, don’t ask…yes I did steal the whole article…which I thought/hoped was longer.

Not that this isn’t important, it is!

Um, the climate is changing and we need to change with it.

That part that is debatable is whether or not WE CAN do anything about the sun burning hotter!

Ironically the only way to ‘temporarily’ fix that problem is ‘nuclear winter’ and we’ll have an extinction level event on our hands if we attempt that variety of ‘radical action’.

Green house gases are only part of the problem…and maybe the infamous they are focused on that aspect because it fits the ‘illusion’ we can do something about the problem.

Because the sun’s core getting hotter is just a fact of life and there ain’t a whole hell of a lot we can do make it ‘cool down’.

Worse, fixing our sun is a task so monumental in nature and we’d have to invent ALL of the technology to accomplish the task.

Because it doesn’t currently exist.

Not like we can call the next galaxy over and ask to borrow a couple of billion tons of anti-matter.

Fortunately I suspect our ‘immediate’ problem is the (artificial) end of fossil fuels and that the gradual (and largely unavoidable) warming of the sun itself can be adapted to.

It’s going to be fixing the global economy to accommodate the post peak oil world that we have to adjust to.

And sadly that requires ‘prying’ the levers of power away from those who wield power by virtue of their control over fossil fuels.

Which, ironically means the >One Percent…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bogeymen

Greetings good citizen,

And welcome to yet another episode of ‘As the worm squirms…’

Honestly good citizen it is like a soap opera out there in the corporate owned media and, as you are well aware, your average conservative is already mentally unstable…apparently the Mittster’s missteps in recent weeks proved to be too much for this conservative.

Albert Peterson shot dead his wife and two sons hours after going to church because he dreaded the thought of Obama winning the election, a family friend has revealed.

A confidante of the family for the past 25 years has spoken to MailOnline about the strength and grace of the Peterson family, as well as the torment that plagued Albert which drove him to shoot dead his wife Kathleen and his two sons Christopher and Mathew at their suburban home in DC on Sunday.

A history of mental illness, the loss of a dear uncle, and a growing fear of Obama winning a second term in the White House took its toll on the mind of Mr Peterson, a wealthy defense contractor, the friend said.

'He just did not want his kids inheriting this mess,' Maggie L, who did not wish to reveal her last name, told MailOnline. 'Sometimes we thought he might take his own life when he was so depressed. We never thought he would take Kathie's.'

Sure looks like Maggie with ‘no last name’ got that one wrong.

Um, birds of a feather good citizen…which is to opine that some one as SICK as Albert Peterson was wouldn’t likely associate himself with a known ‘liberal’ much less befriend one.

Not that Mr. Peterson could actually recognize a real ‘socialist’ even if he was being beaten to death by one!

So Maggs (of the no last name) is likely just as conservative and therefore, just as whacked in the head as Peterson, er, ‘was’.

And naturally your first inclination would be to consider this an ‘isolated incident’…that the rest of the community dodged a bullet when this guy decided to remove his bloodline from the gene pool.

Imagine the carnage if Mr. Peterson decided to ‘save America’?

Which reminds me of a political sign I saw erected on the lawn of a conservo-whacko. (I think I have mentioned previously that I live in a decidedly RED section of a notoriously Blue state.)

Well, even with the, er, ‘concentration’ of conservo-whackos in the area, you only see republican signage on one in every twenty houses…

And one such house had a sign which read ‘Save America, Vote Republican!’

And it is precisely this sort of ‘disconnect’ than prompted me to devise ‘exile’.

Why does anyone think the global economy has collapsed?

Does anyone truly believe it was the ‘liberals’ fault?

Who exported this nation’s productive capacity, wholesale to China?

Who, specifically, opened trade relations with China? (hint in 1972)

Everything that has gone wrong in this country for the past forty years is due to the Republican backed oligarchy.

No exceptions.

Which brings us full circle with the other side of this, er, ‘equation’…there hasn’t been a ‘real democrat’ in US Politics for the past thirty years.

So far Obama has been Bush’s third term…and if he’s re-elected, he will be his forth too!

Go ahead and point to his ACTIONS and tell me I’m wrong! (Because you can’t.)

These conservo-whackos who are sniveling about how if Obama is re-elected well wake up in ‘a worker’s paradise’ assumes that these asshole dreading it would even recognize it if it were being fed to them with a spoon!

There isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between Obama and Romney…and that’s just the way the oligarchs like it.

You’re gonna get government ‘by, for and of’ the One Percent no matter who wins.

But apparently Mr. Peterson drank just a teeny bit too much Kool Aid.

The sad part here good citizen is now I look like the one who is losing his grip.

But you can hardly call me ‘delusional’.

It is, nonetheless, ‘tragic’ that some people get so wrapped up in politics that they will murder their wife and children just to ‘protect them’ from the evil that is coming.

And that’s the other disturbing part good citizen, this ‘confusion’ over what and who is ‘evil’.

Some of you think my, er, ‘commie’ ass is ‘evil’.

Well, let me enlighten the, er, ‘ignorant’ that Anarchy is NOT a branch of communism but an branch of Democracy!

But the people who think Anarchy = communism are the same kind of people who take a gun to their own family, taking far too literally the old saying ‘better dead than red’.

I’m no fan of communism but you have to ask yourself, wouldn’t you be ‘better off dead’ than letting a capitalist pig suck the life out of you, leaving you with nothing?

Oh, PS by the way, what the capitalist pig wants to strip from you is your ‘entitlements’.

They want to take away your SSI and your Medicare so they can shrink the government down to something that can be drown in a bath tub.

But wouldn’t you really be better served drowning Grover Norquist in a puddle of his own vomit?

Because that’s another conservo-whacko fairy tale, that you’re ‘overtaxed’.

Ask yourself, how the hell do they sleep at night with all of those bogeymen hiding under their bed?

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

Decision 2012

Greetings good citizen,

It is sometimes difficult to determine which is more lamentable, the tone-deafness of our current (as well as would be) leaders or the stunning lack of choice being offered by the (now impossible to tell apart) major political parties.

Much, er, ‘showmanship’ is being expended to drive home the idea that our long defunct political system is ‘suddenly incapable’ of governing the nation.

Just as the Corporate Owned Media has been tireless in their ‘squelching’ of the Occupy movement and their divisive message of US vs. the >One Percent.

In yet another disconcerting message from those pretending to be Democrats, we are reminded of just how hard our hands are being forced:

A large segment of what we will call the ‘progressive forces’ in US politics approach US elections generally, and Presidential elections in particular, as if: (1) we have more power on the ground than we actually possess, and (2) the elections are about expressing our political outrage at the system. Both get us off on the wrong foot.

The US electoral system is among the most undemocratic on the planet. Constructed in a manner so as to guarantee an ongoing dominance of a two party duopoly, the US electoral universe largely aims at reducing so-called legitimate discussion to certain restricted parameters acceptable to the ruling circles of the country. Almost all progressive measures, such as Medicare for All or Full Employment, are simply declared ‘off the table.’ In that sense there is no surprise that the Democratic and Republican parties are both parties of the ruling circles, even though they are quite distinct within that sphere.

The nature of the US electoral system--and specifically the ballot restrictions and ‘winner-take-all’ rules within it--encourages or pressures various class fractions and demographic constituency groups to establish elite-dominated electoral coalitions. The Democratic and Republican parties are, in effect, electoral coalitions or party-blocs of this sort, unrecognizable in most of the known universe as political parties united around a program and a degree of discipline to be accountable to it. We may want and fight for another kind of system, but it would be foolish to develop strategy and tactics not based on the one we actually have.

I dunno about the rest of you but there is only ONE party out there with Worker in its name and that’s who I’m voting for!

Neither the (now defunct) Democrats nor the Republicans (also nearly defunct) give a flying F about the worker…and if we don’t take care of our workers, we won’t have a nation left to salvage.

Um, it is one of the founding principles of A Simple Plan, the recognition of the fact that the world all around us is the product of workers everywhere getting their sorry ass out of bed each day and going to do what they’re paid to do!

It really is that ‘simple’.

Without ‘workers’, none of it happens…and even the ungrateful >One Percent knows it.

Now, for those of you who don’t possess a dictionary, I will provide you with a definition of a word that has been ‘demonized’ by the (incurably stupid) right and that word is the first word of the party that has workers as part of its name.

That word is ‘Socialist’.

I see (largely clueless) kids ranting on the Internet that Mr. Obama is turning America ‘Socialist’.

But our children are to be forgiven for their ignorance (which they inherit from their parents.)

Would that it were kiddos! Would that it were.

Because EVERY ‘public good’ you can point to in our collapsing civilization is the product of ‘Socialism’. Otherwise known as ‘the collective will of the people.’

It is this ‘collective will’ that the >One Percent wishes to stamp out!

It is disconcerting to see how the bought and paid for media has things reversed.

They preach Socialism = Bad and Capitalism = good when just the opposite is true.

Worse, it is the capitalist’s overcharging for ‘socially funded’ projects that give socialism it’s ‘bad name’.

Your average school or roadway costs the public three times what its private sector equivalent does.

And that is just wrong…it also displays how greedy capitalists are.

In fact if you look at the ‘great fortunes’ amassed across the economic landscape, MOST of them came from public contracts…and more than a few are/were ‘war profiteers’!

So as we head into the last three months before we get to pretend we decide anything that goes on around here, you’d best start thinking about who you’re gonna vote for, not that it matters.

The Oligarchs have already cast their ballots and the conservo-loonies won!

But you needn’t take my word for it, you can wait ‘til November and hear it from the Corporate Owned Media.

Remembering all the while just how ‘divided’ the 99 Percent is.

And if that don’t stick in your craw, maybe you deserve a King.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Lead Ballots

Greetings good citizen,

I have been rather vocal in my accusations that the Democratic party no longer exists but I have dropped the ball, so to speak, regarding the simultaneous disappearance of the Republicans.

Which is to say today’s politics bear almost no resemblance to politics when I was a boy…

Although the ‘changes’ have been taking shape since before I was born. When I was young I had politics explained to me in very basic terms. Democrats were for the workers and Republicans were for the bosses.

Where are those people today?

You hear the ‘progressives’ wringing their hands and wailing over the ‘degradation’ of the ‘middle class’.

In counter point I came across an article this morning that Obama is (finally) wooing ‘working class’ voters, people who elected him last time and the same people who have disappeared from the political dialog almost three decades ago.

Politicians don’t talk about their biggest failure and that would be the workers of this country…and they have chosen to ignore them for the past three decades, since Ronnie Reagan stole won the White House.

Don’t you think it’s ‘too little, too late’ to be chasing the ‘working voter’ now?

One thing is for sure, there are a lot less workers now than there used to be…and that is going to prove ‘problematic’ for whoever wins the White House next.

Because the ONLY thing the capitalists have up their sleeve is deeply inadequate ‘hand out programs’.

If they stop ‘buying’ pacifism from the masses what remains of this nation will tear itself to pieces in a fortnight.

Probably less…but I digress.

Weren’t we talking about the mysterious disappearance of the ‘traditional’ Republican?

Ayn Rand, an occasional darling of the Tea Party, has become a cult figure within the GOP in recent years. It is easy enough to see how her tough-guy, every-man-for-himself posturing would be a natural fit with the Wall Street bankers and the right-wing politicians they fund—notwithstanding the bankers’ fondness for government bailouts. But Rand’s philosophy found most of its adherents in the libertarian wing of the party, a group that overlaps with, but is certainly not identical to, the “business conservatives” who fund the bulk of the GOP’s activities.

There has always been a strong strain of rugged individualism in America, and the GOP has cleverly managed to co-opt that spirit to its advantage. The problem is that Rand proclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity as a religion of weaklings possessing a slave mentality. So how do Republican candidates manage to bamboozle what is perhaps the largest single bloc in their voting base, the religious fundamentalists, about this?

Certainly the ignorance of many fundamentalist values voters about the wider world and the life of the mind goes some distance toward explaining the paradox: GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time as they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction because most of their audience is blissfully unaware of who Ayn Rand was and what she advocated. But voters can to some extent be forgiven their ignorance, because politicians have grown so skillful at misdirecting them about their intentions.

Funny how the old lines of ‘class antagonism’ were used to split the tradition parties into something they were never intended to do.

The Fundies swallowed the GOP whole because there already existed a God based element within it’s basic structure. The principal defense of the capitalist is the insistence that the inherent unfairness of capitalism is the direct result of ‘God’s Will’.

It has always been so.

This is how we have the indefensible defended as being the best possible way…because it is ‘God’s will’.

And there are no shortage of grifters out there who will fuck you out of your birthright, insisting the whole time that it is ALL ‘God’s will’!

And sometime in the seventies it became apparent that all the wealthy had to do was keep their checkbook in their pockets when it came to those pesky ‘worker lovin’ democrats and they’d dry up and blow away!

And that’s just what happened…

But not having an ‘opposition’ to lay the blame upon for things going sour just wouldn’t do…

So the evil fuckers ‘stacked the deck’ and ran their own candidates under the long defunct Democratic banner.

Now Democrats don’t run under the worker banner, they run under the ‘progressive’ banner…which everybody is starting to realize is actually the Libertarian banner, the radical branch of the old GOP.

What’s this, Libbies on BOTH SIDES of the political fence?

Have we become a one party state?

What do you think, good citizen?

Ironically, you don’t have to dig too deep to see when we turned into an oligarchy…

When a sitting president can admit on national television that his constituency consists of ‘The Haves’ and the ‘Have mores’, YOU, good citizen, have been sold down the river.

He’s NOT ‘your president’, he’s THEIRS…lock, stock and two smokin’ barrels!

Consider this as the cold November wind creeps ever closer and vote your conscious.

Naturally, by then we may well be casting ‘lead’ ballots.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Police State

Greetings good citizen,

Happy Sunday good citizen! Most Some of you have been to commune with ‘Spirit in the sky’ and don’t want anyone ‘harshing your mellow’ while your fresh from the pew…but for most of us those stirrings of ‘brotherly love’ we get from communing with God never make it out of the church’s parking lot.

But hey, not to worry, Big Brother’s got your back!

Why do I say that? You’d be hard-pressed to find someone more religious than a conservative!

On last night's Real Time, Bill Maher interviewed Dan Rather about his thoughts on opinion journalism ("I think it has its place" but "it's not my kind of journalism"), Rather's Bush-going-AWOL story, which famously got him fired, and media consolidation. His thoughts on that:

Whether you're a conservative or a liberal or a progressive, a Democrat or a Republican, everybody can be and should be concerned about this: the constant consolidation of media, particularly national distribution of media, with a few companies -- no more than six, my count is four -- now control more than 80 percent of the true national distribution of news. These large corporations, they have things they need from the power structure in Washington, whether it's Republican or Democrat, and of course the people in Washington have things they want the news to be reported. To put it bluntly, very big business is in bed with very big government in Washington, and has more to do with what the average person sees, hears, and reads than most people know.

And what does the Conservo-fascist do with political power?

Have a gander:

I've always thought of the Military Industrial Complex as welfare for white guys. This would back up that claim:

Among other unasked for changes, the bill keeps aging aircraft and ships the military wants to phase out, keeps the Army and Marines at larger force levels and orders construction of missile defenses.

They don't want it, they don't need it, but the Republican donors want the profits and their conservative base voters want the very well paying, extremely high benefits jobs.

They like to say they hate Big Government, but that's a lie. They love it. It's just that they want to funnel the money to their own constituencies --- and they want to build a police state that will keep everyone else in line in case they decide to do something about it.

And you thought I was paranoid? Not that they don’t have damn good reason to be, er, ‘suspicious.’

In a ‘free and democratic’ society, what could be the motivation of people ardently attempting to strangle democracy in its sleep?

Worse, good citizen…what kind of democracy is it that only asks you to chose someone who will decide in your name WITHOUT EVER CONSULTING YOU?

Because in my book that is NOT ‘democracy’, it’s FRAUD!

BY DEFINITION ‘democracy’ is you having your say DIRECTLY on the issue at hand.

This process that removes you completely from the entire decision-making process is both treachery AND fraud!

And you can see that this ‘process’ has been ‘duplicated’ right down the line.

So you CAN’T use the process to fix the process!

(Which has created the current pickle of the system being broken and there’s no way to fix it (from the outside and no will to fix it on the inside!))

So we ‘cast our votes’ (as we will in a couple of months) then they hand pick the winners, (completely disregarding your vote,) then they go ahead and do what they want without regard for the consequences!

Because to defy them now is to invite, whether you realize it or not, getting ‘disappeared’.

How ironic is it that it was the communists that made this a ‘common occurance’…but understand, this didn’t start until AFTER the ‘counter-revolution’ had succeeded.

Just as the ‘trade doors’ to China remained closed UNTIL the ‘counter-revolution’ and the usurpers had cemented their power! THEN they made overtures to the West to join the ‘global community’.

And who accepted? Richard Nixon. No matter where you look over the past forty years there's a conservo-fascist behind every big move!

Now we have a shattered global economy (capitalism was NEVER intended to be a ‘universal’ commerce system because of its ‘cannibalistic qualities’ and it’s over reliance on an extremely limited amount of ‘market share’.) threatening to leave a huge ‘void’ that much of the human race will fall into.

And the psychopath running the whole thing doesn’t care! Worse, he believes it is the ‘natural order’ of things.

Pushing humanity into its own cesspool is no more than we deserve, especially for ‘permitting’ something as cruel as capitalism to flourish!

And that’s a pretty damning indictment regardless of how you look at it.

It’s the same sad story, good citizen. The few will have to claw our way back from the brink to save the rest of us.

And among those saved will be the seeds of repeat episode.

Without the proper social safeguards, those seeds will contaminate society with a fresh crop of blind greed-heads, who will promptly destroy whatever they get their hands on.

Look at the job in front of us now and think for a moment; couldn’t all of this have been avoided if only we had the proper safeguards in place?

Look no further than A Simple Plan, the only revolutionary formula designed to defeat the ‘counter-revolution’ from the beginning!

With no money (hard currency) corruption is impossible and political power will remain permanently beyond the reach of the ‘self-serving’.

To even suggest removing political power from the hands of the people is an exile offense under the human anti-exploitation law!

Which is to point out that November is just the beginning of a long, slippery slope we need to claw our way back to the top of.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Power Failure

Greetings good citizen,

Yesterday was the ‘last day of school’ in this neck of the woods (although my kid’s cousins have been out since last week!)

Not that I’m using THAT as an excuse for not posting yesterday. No, ironically it was a much more common ‘beastie’ that devoured last night’s post. We had a Power Failure when I was 90% done (and then I couldn’t find the ‘recovered’ document, just like I can’t find the recovered economy anywhere either!)

So much for yesterday…onward with today.

Okay good citizen, it’s 10:30 AM EST and the Dow is down a touch more than 200 points…(not that this has anything to do with reality.)

I didn’t find this telling bit of news in today’s NY Times, this link comes from the news feed tied to my browser’s Home Page.

Are the two news items related?

Without a doubt (even if you have to make the connection your self.)

The headline reads loosely as follows:

Saab runs out of cash to meet payroll.

Why do you suppose that is, good citizen?

Could it be ‘economics 101’? That unalterable fact of capitalism; businesses’ which fail to attract sufficient market share go bankrupt?

Let’s repeat the refrain, shall we?

The destruction of our civilization proceeds apace!

(Don’t forget the sub-refrain: Capitalism is Doomed!)

While it currently isn’t ‘on radar’, we will soon be asking ourselves why we are following the Lemmings off the cliff…and we won’t have a good answer.

It will resonate like those Scott trade commercials with the shifty, weasel broker (spending YOUR money like it was water) trying to justify his existance…

Understand good citizen when the few succeed in, well, ‘monopolizing’ the world’s markets, the know they won’t hold on to their bonanza via Democracy or anything resembling ‘free markets’.

So BOTH will have to go…and if you don’t like it, you can go pound sand!

Or hang these criminals! Really, the choice is yours.

Either YOU put up with it or you don’t.

Understand there’s more to it than just saying ‘no’. The criminals have made themselves the nominal superiors of 'the men with guns and badges.'

Theoretically, the men with the guns won’t fire upon ‘innocent civilians’ a distinction that is difficult to make while the civilians are trying to throw off the yoke of corruption the criminals have saddled them with!

Unsurprisingly, we have this disturbing story the ‘infamous they’ are pinning today’s market woes on.

Talk about your ‘short term solutions’, looks like the market is ‘pricing in’ the pending economic disaster brought on by rapidly escalating energy prices.

If you don’t live somewhere that you can walk around in shirt-sleeves all year long, move (cuz you’re gonna freeze to death if you don’t!)

Oh, PS by the way, you can still fall victim to hypothermia in places where the temperatures never go below freezing!

Talk about your ‘double whack’ you’ll be unable to afford the fuel to escape the cold nor the fuel to keep you warm.

Got your eye on that forest outside your window? Are you prepared to kill for it? That’s what it’s going to take…in case any of you thought there was ‘plenty to go around’.

Yep, it’s getting DAMN scary out there! Good thing it’s summer time!

Things are going to take a definite turn for the worse once cold weather threatens to return…

Not that things could get much worse than they already are

Which is to ask why do any of you still doubt that ALL money is ‘FUNNY’?

If we’ve got the money to pay for frisking the general population then we have the money to bail out (all of) the banks and fight a dozen wars at once!

Which is to say, the more removed money becomes from its intended purpose, the more ridiculous our reality becomes.

It’s outrageous that we have a handful of people with more money than they can spend and huge numbers that have all they can do to keep food on the table and a roof (of sorts) over their heads!

And NOTHING is done about it…

WTF, good citizen, WTF?

What’s happening right here and now has little to do with economics and everything to do with ‘power’.

The few are trying their damnedest to kill off as much of the ‘surplus population’ as they can without getting themselves killed.

Methinks they will succeed on one level but will fail to survive the other.

For some unfathomable reason the term ‘blowback’ is meaningless to them…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Unplugged

Greetings good citizen,

In what might be considered ‘odd’ there are no links today becaue there were no particularly compelling articles in the few sources I peruse daily.

While the rising death toll in the south keeps me personally wondering about HAARP (a weather control technology designed by Tesla and built by Raytheon.) I am hesitant to draw unnecessary attention to something I have no proof of it being currently deployed.

Speculate is all I can do. Beyond that I can perhaps draw your attention to the importance of this region as far as the global food supply is concerned.

Tornadoes don’t just kill people.

Voilent storms centered in crop producing regions do ‘double duty’ when it comes to culling the ‘surplus population’.

It would be easy to go off on a tangent here but let it suffice to say the surprising uptick in cyclone related deaths (they have ‘reasonably effective’ early warning systems now) is, er, disconcerting.

It’s days like today that illustrate when the media doesn’t want to tell you anything they just dummy up.

You’d think the Royal Wedding was all that matters to a world ready to break apart due to irrational, reckless financial manipulation…but that’s always going on so it’s not ‘news’.

The fact that they continue to do nothing about it is also ‘non-news’.

Talk about your ‘dangerous games’, none of you realize just how dangerous the situation is and you won’t until it’s too late!

Then you’ll be ‘thunderstruck’.

Because, in your heart of hearts, you believe they ‘wouldn’t dare’ manipulate the value of the ‘be all, end all’!

On that score you’d be sadly, er, ‘mistaken’.

Since we’re headed in that direction I’m going to back up a few inches and recant stating that there was ‘no news’ today…with a link from a couple of days ago…

Soaring Costs Force Some Renters To Choose Between Shelter And Food

If only because it ties into the topic at hand, ‘manipulation of the ‘be all, end all’.

You work for pay, the whole ‘employer/employee relationship is predicated on an employer offering you enough pay so you would be willing to spend you time enriching him rather than yourself.

Not for nothing but employers seem to have ‘forgotten’ this part of the bargain, not that they needed to pay much attention to it because they have succeeded in limiting your ‘options’…significantly.

This is an even more disturbing conundrum when ‘energy’ costs are added in (although I believe the article does point to rising energy costs as being the primary driver of this renewed ‘squeeze’ on the ‘paycheck peasants’.

Is this where all of this is headed? ‘A Vast, Global Online Network of Homeless People’

We may not have anyplace to hang our hats and nuthin’ to eat but hot damn, we’re ‘wired’!

It is a truly sad fact good citizen that if you aren’t ‘plugged in’ you can’t participate.

How ‘astonishing’ is it that even the crappiest mobile phone is capable of both tracking and reporting your whereabouts, ‘on demand’ to the authorities?

Any of you getting creeped out about ‘Big Brother’ breathing down your neck yet?

Or are you already beyond that? Hell, they can’t come after us all at once and they don’t have the space to lock us all up, not yet anyway.

The ‘idea’ behind making the ‘electronic lifeline’ trackable is so after you have been driven to a life of crime, the cell phone/ I pad/tablet will make it ‘easier’ for the cops to find you.

Geez, good citizen, and to think that not so long ago this bullshit would all be the stuff of ‘paranoid delusions’.

You’d be called ‘crazy’ if you even speculated the ‘government’ was following you around via your cell phone…turns out this wasn’t exactly ‘crazy talk’ after all.

I don’t have a cell phone…got that ‘old fogey’ thing about not wanting people to “just reach out and touch me”…(anytime they fucking feel like it, because they can.)

But that’s okay, they can track my car’s whereabouts if they need to find me…which is to point out this is nothing ‘new’…making it, ironically, ‘not news’…

Naturally this leads us to the edge of the ‘slippery slope’ where it becomes of tantamount importance to have secure reins on the people who have access to this kind of information.

The unscrupulous bunch in power now would hang you with your own spit (and make sure you choked to death in the process!)

Never before has so much been placed in peril by so few.

How lucky is it they haven’t figured out how to use this secret data to blackmail us with…yet?

If you’ve got something to hide, I’d be very worried if I were you.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner