Uncertainty...

Greetings good citizen,

As we slog forward into an uncertain future those who would drive our civilization over a cliff to mask their crimes against humanity care not what happens after that.

My advice, as always, is to prepare. (And NOT like the idiots on ‘doomsday preppers’ who obviously have a screw loose…besides being decidedly homicidal! If you need further convincing that the world after the collapse is going to be uncommonly hazardous, watch the show!) Hint: it’s the trigger happy preppers you have to watch out for! Stumble upon their ‘hide’ and they will open fire first and ask questions afterwards!

In a flicker of insight on an otherwise direction-less horizon we have this article that belabors the obvious in a couple of directions…

Our Economic Pickle
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

The debt-ceiling debate is unlikely to alter one major factor contributing to income inequality: stagnant wages.

Now that it is ‘on the table’, who (and how) will the issue of ‘stagnant wages’ be addressed?

‘Employers’ have no problems raising their prices in pace with inflation (driving inflation ever upwards) but are ‘strangely reluctant’ to raise their ‘employee/customers’ purchasing power.

The ‘strategy’ could be called ‘out-waiting the competition’, the longer they wait to raise their employees pay, the more they keep for themselves.

Ultimately, your NOT being paid a living wage is being driven by the ‘owners desire’ to wax rich (at, ultimately, ALL of our expense.)

It’s lower prices we don’t pay and fair wages you don’t get, because the idiots who sign your paycheck follow their mother’s advice and PAY THEMSELVES FIRST!

Funny how this advice isn’t so sound when you put it into this context, is it? It creates a ‘penny-wise and pound-foolish’ situation that is crumbling all around us as we sit here contemplating how we got ourselves into such a, as the article calls it, ‘Pickle’?

We will see in the article after this next one who WON’T be working to save us from employer greed

But the other article first:

News Analysis
The Low Politics of Low Growth
By ANNIE LOWREY

What if it is the weak economy that is driving the fiscal failures in Washington?

How odd is it that the question answers itself? (But this can be attributed to the ‘muzzle’ the ‘write for hire’ crowd is forced to wear.)

I find it astounding that our, and let’s face it, none of them has a grip on reality, ‘politicians’ continue to flog the concept of ‘perpetual growth’ as the key to future prosperity.

How can you ‘grow’ when there has been NOTHING ‘new’ since Pong? Every other technological marvel is merely the ‘fleshing out’ of potential that was already there.

So ‘exporting jobs’ (to make it more profitable for the ‘owner’) also doesn’t encourage (local) economic growth. It really only serves to make the owner richer than he/she deserves to be.

But are our politicians focused on their ‘primary job’ of managing our civilization for the benefit of our species?

Let’s have a look:

TOP NEWS
Obama Will Seek Citizenship Path in One Fast Push
By JULIA PRESTON

President Obama and lawmakers from the two parties believe that their best chances for passing substantial legislation on immigration will come early in his second term.

Like healthcare, NOBODY is looking for a ‘solution’ to an already over-populated, far too competitive job market!

It’s been opined that this (European satellite) was built by ‘immigrants’. (It was even somewhat true when most of the immigrants hailed from Europe…)

Not that providing EMPLOYERS with a ‘cheaper labor pool’ to exploit is ever a justification to ‘streamline’ the immigration process, especially when you get a load of how they intend to go about it.

You’ll get your ‘citizenship’ all right but first you’ll have to do your military service. You will be sent to foreign lands, meet new, interesting people and kill them.

What used to be scabs to keep the factories humming (cheaply) will become fodder for the endless wars the capitalists wage, merely to keep the population (and by extension, the unemployment rate down.)

There won’t be any ‘resource wars’. Resources are all sold openly on the (alleged) ‘free markets’ so what’s to ‘fight’ over?

Even the current conflict in the Middle East is over a police problem that should have been handled ‘internally’ by local law enforcement.

BUT NO! Our (block-headed) government had to use military force instead of foreign aid and providing foreign governments the tools to handle the problems itself.

Worse, our (rogue) government supports criminal regimes like the Israelis who openly subjugate the former inhabitants of the nation they now ‘occupy’ and use military force to maintain the upper hand, in open defiance of international law…not that ‘respect for the law’ is real strong here either.

But that’s another issue altogether as the ‘over fifty crowd' prepares to fight for its survival!

BUSINESS
Over 50, and Under No Illusions
By CAITLIN KELLY

Many people aged 55 to 64, who had been dreaming of easy retirement, have had to remake their lives to find work during the recession and its aftermath.

As many of us close in on the ‘finish line’ of our professional careers (most of them in tatters…the careers and our humble selves.) We are encountering the above mentioned ‘lawlessness’ that offers us no recourse to what is likely to turn into a very deadly confrontation.

While we have long lamented the ‘rudderless’ condition of our crumbling society, this was no accident. It didn’t ‘wear out’, it was snapped off by those who could (through manipulation) afford to ‘buy’ the justice system…(something many will pay dearly for because so many already have!)

Note how the capitalist credo is parroted here in the headline. How the ‘over fifty crowd’ are (unsuccessfully) ‘making themselves useful’ as they ‘sprint’ (more like limp/drag) themselves toward a finish line that (mysteriously) keeps backing away! (So a wretched few can be rich…)

Yes, good citizen, we’re all going to be each other’s ‘financial advisors’ and manage each other’s money and sell each other houses neither of us can afford.

With those ‘encouraging words’ I thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bug Out

Greetings good citizen,

Markets are cliff diving this morning although they are not currently at serious negative levels…but the average person stopped caring about what happens on Wall Street years ago. They abandoned it along with the hope of ever seeing their retirement money again…fucking thieves!

But that is not the topic of the day, today I want to address a bizarre practice that the media has turned into a ‘reality show’ and that practice is known as ‘prepping’.

You can see the potential for comic relief when you listen to the disasters these ‘seemingly ordinary’ people are preparing for (provided complete with ‘expert rebuttal’ by the show’s producers…who call themselves ‘Practical Preppers’.

Um, perhaps the point is the show is produced as ‘entertainment’ but the people highlighted in each episode are deadly serious…

And, in a highly litigious world you have to wonder who bears the liability of someone imitating what they see on these shows and killing a lot of innocent people because of it?

Never once do they mention the NEED to ‘rotate’ the food they are stockpiling, instead they feed the ‘it’ll keep’ mentality by not brining up the issues of perishability and contamination at all. (Probably because they are unqualified to speak ‘authoritatively’ on the subject.)

So who’s libel if a bunch of people get poisoned due to the, er, ‘incomplete’ information they get from the show?

Well, if the world goes to pot the answer is simple, nobody…because there won’t be anyone around to hold court.

We’ll all be too busy keeping our sorry asses alive to be bothering with jury trials…besides, under ‘gun rules’ things are intensely ‘simplified’, the one with the gun makes the rules.

(If both parties are armed, the one who deals a fatal wound to his target first wins! However, USUALLY both parties will succeed in wounding one another and they will both die due to the lack of medical attention societal collapse will precipitate…(written in the interests of ‘full disclosure’.)

We won’t go into strategies to avoid being critically injured in a gunfight here, let it suffice to say I am trying to be more ‘responsible’ than the Fox News owned TV channel that produces the, er, ‘entertainment’.

(Talk about your fucking ‘legal fig leafs’ because that’s the one they’re hiding behind!)

As you might suspect, most of these ‘doomers’ fear social collapse brought on by a collapse of the monetary system…which is always ‘pooh-poohed’ by the producers/self-appointed ‘experts’.

Worse, they cite ‘economists’ as their source for their denial…like economists saw the collapse of the banking system coming! They’ve been in denial for five years that it has already happened, what would you expect them to say?

ONE MORE TIME for those of you too thick to ‘get it’ the first time or to figure it out for yourself…

THE GLOBAL BANKING SYSTEM COLLAPSED FIVE YEARS AGO AND NOBODY HAS DONE ANYTHING TO FIX IT!

That’s why the banks need perpetual ‘taxpayer bailouts’…they will eventually bankrupt the treasury and the whole shooting match will collapse, virtually ‘instantly’ (in a matter of hours.)

IF the current, er, failed system remains in place.

But you don’t care about that, do you good citizen?

More importantly, you’ve only watched one episode of ‘Doomsday Preppers’ and you were drunk so you thought it was funny as hell…and you haven’t thought about it since.

Despite being aware that the ‘bug-out’ movement has been around for a long time, people have been ‘preparing’ for a nuclear war since 1945 so ‘prepping’ isn’t ‘new’.

The thing that’s disturbing about our modern preppers is they somehow think they stand a chance against hoards of ‘disenfranchised’ fellow citizens who aren’t as well ‘prepared’ but stand a mighty good chance of being ‘equally’ (if not better) armed.

My ‘advice’ regarding being ‘prepared’ is to know where to find wild edibles, stockpiles of ANYTHING will only make you a ‘high value target’ and groups of well-armed and probably somewhat well trained individuals will make short work of you and your puny defenses.

Best not to have anything they can take…simple as that (if not particularly ‘entertaining’…funny, when the show first aired, they had ONE GUY in California on who was ‘doing it right’ and they haven’t had another since…what does that tell you?

Brings us back to our ‘fig leaf’, doesn’t it?

It’s just ‘entertainment’ (that some people choose to take VERY seriously, albeit, this doesn’t prevent them from doing all of the ‘wrong things’.)

Don’t know what to tell you good citizen. It disturbs me that the corporate owned media would use such a phenomenon for its ‘entertainment value’ (although they are careful not to, er, ‘discredit’ any of the preppers.)

It’s the piss poor advice their ‘experts’ hand out at the end of each episode (and I’ve only seen a handful because the show is painful to watch.) that really gets my goat.

I’m waiting for them to come right out and say ‘Hey, why don’t you all paint bulls-eyes on your backs and go running through that open field over there and let the audience see what happens next?

Well good citizen, what do YOU think will happen next?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner