We're Saved!

Greetings good citizen,

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

How much of this tripe are you expected to swallow?

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

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

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

The higher the Dow goes, the poorer YOU get!

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

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

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

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

And ‘Once upon a time’ it used to be.

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

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

(Probably a combination thereof.)

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

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

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

Why bother working if money is largely ‘meaningless’?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why are they taking it?

What answer do you arrive at good citizen?

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Canned

Greetings good citizen,

In case any of you were wondering the collapse of our civilization proceeds apace, as evidenced by the continued dilution of the money supply for the benefit of the >One Percent.

Because when the nonsense markets do this for no apparent reason, guess who is playing the role of ‘fuckee’?

Stocks Leap on Budget Optimism
By REUTERS 12:03 PM ET
Wall Street stocks made large gains on signs of progress in talks to resolve the fiscal crunch in Washington.

Talk about ‘blowin’ smoke’, every time they jump share prices like this it dilutes the money supply.

But don’t be cozened good citizen, the markets are going to resume their ‘death spiral’, if not tomorrow then by the end of the week.

As you can see, the >One Percent is throwing a hissy over having their taxes go up to where they used to be before the ‘MBA president’ trashed the global economy.

Investors Rush to Beat Threat of Higher Taxes
By NATHANIEL POPPER and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
With potential changes in the tax code set to take place on Jan. 1, investors and business owners have begun to protect their income before the end of the year.

Where do you suppose the >One Percent are going to do with their money now that they will have to give so much of it to the government? You don’t suppose the shiftless bastards will keep it off-shore (like the jobs those tax breaks were supposed to create) do you?

Naturally, as we sit here (five years and counting) for SOMETHING to be done about the financial abuse that bankrupted the global finance system, we get this news:

New York Fed Wins Dismissal of A.I.G. Bailout Lawsuit
By REUTERS 1:10 PM ET
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York won the dismissal of a $25 billion lawsuit by the former chief of American International Group, Maurice R. Greenberg, who argued that the A.I.G. bailout was unlawful.

How fucked up is it good citizen that the only guy with deep enough pockets to bring suit against the Fed for bailing out AIG was it’s former CEO?

Now show of hands good citizens, how many of you are ‘surprised’ by this outcome (considering who was the ‘counterparty’ to all of that bad paper AIG, er, ‘insured’?)

Less surprising is who ended up ‘on the hook’ for the whole kit and kaboddle…vous and moi!

While the ‘commander-in-chief’s’ Attorney General has thus far found ‘no cause’ to pursue criminal action against anyone involved.

Needless to say it casts this man’s qualifications to perform the task entrusted to him in a rather poor light…but for some strange reason the corporate owned media isn’t saying a word…and neither, suspiciously enough, are the Republicans…

Thus are we left to wonder how much success they expect to have with this legislation:

European Countries Seek More Taxes From U.S. Multinational Companies
By ERIC PFANNER
European governments are going after American companies, like Google and Amazon.com, that pay little or no taxes in Europe, despite generating billions of dollars in revenue on the continent.

I’m laying odds in the same vicinity of a snowball’s chance in hell. They don’t pay any taxes here so why should they pay them there?

Oddly, smaller, non-multi-national companies are facing a different set of circumstances:

SAS Avoids Bankruptcy After Unions Approve Plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 11:28 AM ET
All eight unions signed new collective agreements that will see jobs, salaries and pensions cut in the hope of restoring the company’s competitiveness and profitability.

Is it just me or do you see a pattern developing here? Why is it that companies, especially ‘old-line’ companies, lay the burden of making themselves ‘competitive’ on the backs of their hapless employees?

Wouldn’t cutting their prices and slashing the compensation of the front office (who can more readily afford it) be a more sensible approach?

But no, when if comes to executive pay cuts it’s time to ditch the venture! If a VP has to take even a ten cent an hour pay reduction it’s time to abandon ship.

Suppose the company commit blasphemy and stop paying for the staff’s country club membership, oh the scandal!

Cut one and you might as well cut them all! How could you show your face once you’ve proven your company is a piker?

But that’s nothing compared to this news:

Change in Negotiators Shakes Up U.S.-China Trade Policy
By KEITH BRADSHER
Chen Deming, who has led China’s policy on trade negotiations as commerce minister, failed to win a seat on the Central Committee and will be replaced.

How humiliating? The man failed to bring the lapdog to heel and now he’s being ‘replaced’.

This could prove interesting but not nearly as interesting as the revolt that is brewing in China’s countryside.

Will the US decide to send ‘peacekeepers’ in to protect US Interests?

Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Dueling Realities

Greetings good citizen,

Really should have had this done earlier but other matters pressed. In case you didn’t notice we had another ‘sideways’ day in the markets today, after they headed for the basement first thing.

Equally as disturbing is how Europe was having an absolutely horrible session…until (you guessed it) the NYSE opened!

Speaking of contradictions and other nonsensical happenings, the headlines say the Mittster is on the attack after the latest economic news broke…

Could numbnuts be talking about this headline?

U.S. Economy Grew at 2% Rate in 3rd Quarter
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

More positive consumer activity and a healthier housing sector outweighed the effects of the drought, caution on the part of businesses and weaker exports.

Maybe Mitt is championing those downtrodden exporters, you know the guys who send work overseas? (because besides raw materials and food, the same products third world countries export, we don’t export Jack…unless you count our fucking jobs, which are exported wholesale to the lowest bidder thanks to assholes like Romney!

But that’s not what the corporate owned media reports. No, instead we get stories like this:

Olympics and Asset Sales Help Lift Comcast Profits
By BRIAN STELTER

An increase in the average payment for a video subscription — to more than $150 month — helped the cable company offset a decline in the number of subscribers.

People cutting back on expenses because their bosses can’t find it in their hearts to give out raises will commonly cancel their cable service.

And nearly doubling their fee is how the cable company keeps their shareowners smiling!

Don’t you wish YOU could do that to your employer?

But if you tried it you probably end up like these guys:

Spain’s Economic Misery Hits New Threshold
By RAPHAEL MINDER 3:20 PM ET

Unemployment passed 25 percent, a picture so dark that it could help Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in his case against more austerity.

Naturally good citizen, the problem isn’t high unemployment in Spain; it’s intolerably high unemployment across all of Western civilization!

But that isn’t a problem the further East you go:

Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader
By DAVID BARBOZA

It is unclear how much Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who has staked a position as a populist and a reformer, knows about the $2.7 billion in assets his family has amassed.

If that same story were unfolding here in the US the politician in question would remain adamant that they knew NOTHING about any, er, ‘self-enrichment’ and power brokering that is performed by relatives of the powerful around the world…because we don’t have laws that prevent it.

That is why the global economy is fucked too! The corruption is ‘universal’ and because of that the collapse will be total because the whole system needs to be replaced.

And of course we have the issue of what do we replace it with?

Should we try communism, maybe hoping to get it right this time?

Um, no…I’m pretty sure communism won’t work…because it fails to address the weakness inherent in money.

So, should we try capitalism again, honestly this time?

Fat fucking chance. Honest capitalist is the very definition of the term ‘oxymoron’.

Why don’t we try that anarcho-syndicalyism thingy?

Because they don’t do anything about the printing press either!

I know, let’s return to the ‘gold standard’!

Which way do you want to ‘dial it in’? Do we make gold worth a billion dollars an ounce or do we go back to $20 an ounce and start going in the other direction with fractional cents to make what we’ve got stretch far enough?

Naturally, this too will, er, ‘finance’ crime in all of its myriad forms. There is but ONE viable answer and that, good citizen is A Simple Plan which has NO ‘tangible’ currency.

It also makes it illegal to place anyone in debt…which is the primary basis for coercion. If somebody breaks your favorite toy, go get a new one…and maybe pick up a back up while you’re at it!

Shit happens and you can’t live life holding others responsible for every tiny thing that goes wrong!

Just like the idiot practice of awarding somebody money when they suffer a loss. Money doesn’t bring the lost item back and, if it can be replaced with money then it wasn’t ‘lost’ in the first place.

No cash is a small price to pay for a world free of crime and corruption, not that the chiselers among us won’t try to make you ‘pay’.

And that’s why YOU will be granted an avenue of recourse that has long been outlawed.

If you want to know what that avenue is you’ll have to look it up.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

History

Greetings good citizen,

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

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

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

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

What I Know About Our Corporate Overlords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Floating

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Intellectuals?

Greetings good citizen,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That should make ‘em real popular!

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

Er, YOUR own good!

Not that any of this shit is going to change:

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

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

Economix Blog: How Certificates Can Lift Income


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

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

Stocks on Wall Street Jump 9:33 AM ET

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

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

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

Tighter Banking Bond Is Proposed in Europe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Ironic how circular logic actually applies here!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looks like they’re MIA from here.

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

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

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

Which leads us to some final words of advice…

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

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

God's Will

Greetings good citizen,

If one thing has become abundantly clear it is that the whole Greek bailout thing is a charade! There is ‘no way in hell’ the Greeks can payback the money that was stolen from them to mask the effects of ‘Globalizing’ the Greek economy.

So what the fuck is this?

"It's important to remember that the stock market is not the U.S. economy, and the U.S. economy is not the stock market," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist for the brokerage BTIG. "Most people are likely to say, 'Dow 13,000. So, where's my job?"

The consumer confidence reading of 70.8, while much stronger than the 63 that economists were expecting, is still far below the level of 90 that indicates a healthy economy. It was above 110 in mid-2007, before the recession.

Still, Greenhaus said, while 13,000 is just a round number, "it's a round number that's likely to make many [stupid] Americans feel better about the economy and the stock market. It's another sign that things are getting better."

Speaking of ‘useless data’, how about that ‘better than expected’ consumer confidence number?

Better than WHO expected? And compared to what? It has been FOUR fucking YEARS good citizen, by now the general public has adopted the attitude that the economy ‘is what it is’.

Still, this brings us to something we don’t kick around very often and that is the ‘faith-based’ nature of our current economic set-up.

What happens to these ‘faith based’ deals when the party with the ‘upper hand’ decides it no longer has to abide by its end of the deal (a deal made with people that were ready to lynch the dealer, oh so many decades ago?)

The one percenters aren’t ‘stupid’ (not in the traditional sense anyway.) They know they have returned to the point where their ‘predecessors’ were ‘almost’ put to death for their crimes.

What they remember is that this didn’t happen…and they are betting it will be the ultimate outcome this time around as well.

Failure to prosecute practically invites the criminals to repeat the crime! (and you just know their defense will run along the lines of ‘nobody did time/was executed for this the last time!’

Good lordy, lordy but they do have FAITH, good citizen!

(Most of them have put their ‘faith’ in the bought and paid for justice system and that they’ll never stand trial…and that might well be how it goes down. Which is NOT to infer that they {or their successors} will escape prosecution!)

Because the one percenters think nothing of ruining the prospects of entire generations if they stand to personally gain from it (thus do they condemn their own progeny.)

They like it when I use ‘big words’ because they think you’re too stupid to figure out that progeny means kids/offspring!

This is partly what I mean by ‘stupid in the traditional sense’ combine this with the illusion that they will ‘get away with it’ and we return to ‘stupid in the traditional sense’.

Self-delusion is no excuse, neither is ‘well, everybody else was doing it’ (because ‘everybody else’ is going to get prosecuted too!)

But I, once again, digress!

We WERE discussing the ‘faith based’ nature of the current arrangement.

Man has, throughout history, blamed his own, er, ‘failures/shortcomings’ on his favorite ‘whipping boy’.

Most of you know who that is but I’ll point directly to the ‘worlds greatest scapegoat’ for the literal among you, for he goes by many names and the most common of these is God.

Bobo fucks up BUT who does he point the finger of guilt at? God!

If Bobo cheats you out of your fair share, he covers his crime by telling you that it was ‘gods will’ that the collective ‘you’ were shortchanged, he had nothing to do with it!

He makes the decision NOT to install a safeguard and when the crisis arises from this willful neglect, who does he point the finger at?

His favorite Patsy, (the ever ready and conveniently mythical) ‘God!’

Your circumstances in life are ‘God’s fault’. If you have a problem with how you are treated, take it up with God, (in your prayers so the rest of the world won’t have to listen to your WHINING!)

If you are poor that is because it is ‘God’s will’ that you be poor…and what you keep missing is the fucking HUMBLE part!

Why can’t you people be HUMBLE while GOD kicks you in the teeth (repeatedly)?

I (your ‘god’) can’t stand the constant whining! How the hell am I supposed to stay rich AND pay YOU a living wage?

That would take a miracle and it’s not my department, it’s ‘God’s’!

Um, one more thing before we ‘wrap it up’ for another session.

Note how the article points out how the stock market ISN’T the US economy, YET the 1,400 BILLIONAIRES among are all rich because of their…what?

What do they have that the rest of us don’t?

FUCKING STOCKS!

So why is the fucking stock market rising while the global economy tanks?

One answer, good citizen…it’s our term for ‘illegal activity’…come on, good citizen, you know this one!

It’s a fucking CRIME!

We need to shut down Wall Street around the globe! (NOW!)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Markets are up (but we don't know why?)

Greetings good citizen,

I suspect Wall Street already knows it has no credibility left which explains why stock markets around the world are bleeding from the eye sockets UNTIL the sun rises over Manhattan, then, inexplicably, they rise into positive territory once more.

The sad news, good citizen is this is not ‘American Exceptionalism’ on display, most citizens know the incredible rising markets have no basis in reality nor is it related to America’s puckish sense of humor (because there’s nothing even remotely ‘funny’ about it.)

No good citizen what we’re seeing is criminal hubris writ large!

Stocks were mixed on Wall Street and in Europe on Friday after the new head of the European Central Bank dashed hopes that he would act to ease the euro debt crisis.

Mario Draghi, the president of the central bank, told a gathering of bankers in Frankfurt that European leaders — who, with the notable exception of Germany, have been calling for the bank to use its printing press to help embattled governments — are themselves the problem, taking too long to implement crisis measures they agreed to months or even years earlier.

“Where is the implementation of these long-standing decisions?” he said. “National economic policies are equally responsible for restoring and maintaining financial stability.”

What do you suppose Mario’s talking about? Is he referring to 99 weeks of unemployment pay or is he talking about slashing the social safety net, thereby ‘freeing up’ more funds with which bankers can use to pay bonuses with?

YOUR IRA/401k isn’t worth spit but that didn’t stop the fund that manages it from paying out bonuses fit for Crosius himself…

You ask yourself if the bozo responsible for blowing most of your savings on worthless mortgage backed securities really deserves a ‘bonus’?

More perplexing is WHY those bonus dollars weren’t clawed back to make YOU whole? Why is YOUR pocket being picked to make THEM whole for THEIR mistakes?

Sort of redefines the term ‘double-fucked’, doesn’t it?

Incredibly, the world hasn’t exploded in a frenzied rage because we’ve got, er, ‘bigger problems…

Like the collapse of our civilization.

What use is it to incarcerate these criminals if we will soon be unable to financially support our prisons?

You’d almost think this outcome was part of their plan…

Should Plan ‘A’ (avoiding prosecution altogether) fail for any reason…

Which is to point out that the only way these criminals are going to ‘get what’s coming to them’ is AFTER we prosecute ALL of the assholes who turned a blind eye to this bullshit!

Ironically, they KNOW we will eventually come for them and they don’t care…they THINK their families will ESCAPE!

And they will never know how WRONG that notion really is.

Under the new order, the sins of the parents will be visited upon the children. The ‘unfair advantages’ reaped by the parents for selling out the rest of us will be extracted ten-fold from their children!

Why they think the reformed Justice system will be modeled after the failed one is, like the stock markets themselves, ‘inexplicable’.

But I (and it wouldn’t be one of my rants if it didn’t) digress…

My favorite aggregator ran a rant by Barry Ritholtz that sounded very similar to something I might have written.

Here’s a link in case you’re curious what one of the ‘serious people’ and my humble self could have ‘in common’.

More curious perhaps is how Mr. Ritholtz self identifies as both a capitalist AND a Republican, yet he routinely expresses very, er, ‘liberal’ points of view.

[Lending credence to my theory that most people ‘mis-identify’ themselves both politically as well as socially.]

By way of example, there are people living out of their cars who still identify themselves as ‘middle-class’. (Naturally, this is done out of the ‘expectation’ that they will, er, ‘eventually’ regain their former status…and some of them will, albeit by nefarious means.)

On an important and unrelated note I’d like to thank YOU, my readers for taking the time to read my often puzzling posts.

I take comfort seeing the copy of A Simple Plan on the list of ‘most read posts’. It also tells me that some of you are paying attention and have copied it so you can hold the forked tongued devil’s feet to the fire when they try to skew the plan in ways not intended.

Ironically, the plan is holistic, it will only work ‘properly’ if ALL OF IT is implemented.

Simple variations like adding a ‘tangible medium of exchange’ will fuck up the works royally!

Same thing with stock markets or insurance for that matter, none of them are permitted because they violate the Human Anti-Exploitation Law.

Er, in retrospect the foolish site traffic meter is basically useless, the numbers are all over the pace and don’t jive with one another so what I just reported may be in error…but there’s no way for me to know that…so, as always,

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What's it gonna be?

Greetings good citizen,

Fantastically, good citizen, stock markets are back in positive territory after yesterday’s ‘rush for the exits’.

How ‘credible’ is this development?

I’d posit that credibility be damned, the stock markets went from 1,900 to 12,000 on the DISMANTLING of our industrial base but hey, what the fuck…can’t cry about it.

We couldn’t stop them from doing it, now we can only make then wish the fuck they hadn’t.

So, yesterday’s ‘point’ was the Euro-Zone IS ‘unsalvageable’ (under capitalism.)

What does that make today’s point?

That we live in a world measured by ‘creative accounting’, that two for me and none for you is how the world works (until you get fed up and say ‘fuck off, find another chump to put up with your bullshit!’)

And they do!

Naturally, the ‘other chump’ doesn’t suspect what he’s in for; he’s just happy he cheated the long period of unemployment between jobs.

Oh fucking well!

If we were to ‘split the difference’ between these two outcomes would we arrive at ‘equilibrium’?

That’s what those mismanaging our affairs would have you think, it all ‘balances’ in the end.

Sadly this is not the case.

Without a jubilee we have arrived at the ’end stage’ of capitalism, the stage where the interest on the debt/working capital of the global economy overwhelms the market’s ability to operate ‘profitably’.

Margins were slender to begin with, you don’t have to ‘roll over’ a whole lot of cash before you’re, er, ‘demanding’ more interest than a ‘normal’ investment can guarantee!

Let us not forget the ‘left behind’ worker and the sharp increase in defaults…

Destroy your ‘customer base’ and you flush future profitability down the drain with it.

Sadly, the choice to go down the road where we are currently standing was made long ago, it’s too late to turn back now. We must rebuild from scratch.

The damning indictment was not only did they ‘export’ the jobs, they also exported the equipment necessary to do the job with!

Left to our imagination is what good did a ‘college education’ do when these morons were signing ‘free trade agreements’ that were turning the nation into an ‘economic desert’?

But hey, wasn’t the ‘invisible hand’ supposed to take care of the, er, ‘void’ for us?

Tell that to all of the other Banana Republics in this capitalist world!

Oh there’s gonna be a fight all right, the question is, good citizen, whose gonna win?

We’ve got numbers on our side but they have ‘THE LAW’ on theirs…

Worse, good citizen, in this case it is ‘the law’ THEY make, so it always favors them.

How do you think we got here in the first place?

This perhaps best illustrates the need to place the law (as well as the statistics) of civilization beyond the reach of the ‘self-interested’.

Politicians have a long history of selling the rest of us down the river while ‘cooking the books’ to cover their tracks…

But this crisis isn’t ‘limited’ to politicians…our patriotic business owners have played fast and loose with the charters they were granted as well.

Which is to say this is the primary reason behind the ‘shrink the government movement…not that this will do them any good.

The French monarchy was firmly in the hands of a corrupt commercial sector and they both perished anyway!

Then, like now, stupid is as stupid does.

That’s something to keep in mind as we watch the ONLY indicator of ‘economic health’ act so irrationally as to be rendered useless.

And maybe that’s the point I keep missing.

The news tells us multiple millions are drowning in the cesspool the privileged have dug for us.

Why would the stock markets treat this as ‘good news’?

More for Them!

So what’s it going to be, good citizen?

More for Them and the cesspool for you (and yours since you won’t be around to defend them?)

Or should we hang Them (and those stupid enough to defend Them) High?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Legality

Greetings good citizen,

I have been ‘out of town’ over the weekend and had a rather long commute home on Sunday. I spent today ‘in the office’ thus I have not had the opportunity to post until tonight, Halloween…and we haven’t had a single trick or treater!

This isn’t unusual for the rural area we live in, it’s a long walk between houses around here and we’re the only house on our street (the condo’s across the road are in a ‘security building’ so the kids have to be ‘buzzed in’, anyway, suffice to say the kids usually ‘blow off’ our side street in favor of the ‘richer pickings’ to be had on the next street over.

Ironically, I am mindful of how few kids we normally get (it varies wildly, we’ve had as many as 50 and as few as 9, although this year’s zero is a first…probably due to the snow.) So I only buy candy my kids (and my humble self) will enjoy!

Harder to puzzle out is what happened on Wall Street today? Trick or Treat?

In Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index of euro zone blue chips closed down 3.1 percent, while markets in Germany and Paris lost about 3.2 percent. The FTSE 100 in London was down 2.8 percent. Asian markets were down around 1 percent or less.

“I think it is a big sell-off — profit-taking after an enormous, ferocious, violent run upward,” said James W. Paulsen, chief investment strategist for Wells Capital Management, speaking about the declines in stocks.

But he also forecast that some of the data to be released this week could restore market attention to the economy in the United States.

“I think Europe is certainly part of the reason” for the down day, he said. “Where we end this week is going to have more to do with the data coming from Main Street, U.S.A.”

Seriously good citizen, what the HELL is WRONG with these people? Why does ‘bonehead’ think the collapse of the Euro Zone will leave the rest of the global economy unscathed?

He doesn’t even acknowledge that the recent (totally irrational) run up in stock prices displayed more than a little ‘cognitive dissonance’, does he?

Naturally, I’m being ‘kind’. Pretending the Euro crisis was solved (the purported reason behind the recent run up) or that it wasn’t an exercise in ‘wishful thinking’ borders on delusional!
But then again that’s the stock market for you (since the criminals took over.)

In reality good citizen, all of our ‘troubles’ (starting with the ‘fake prosperity‘) can be traced back to the breakdown in ‘the rule of law.’

We’ve been ‘told’ (rather than seen for ourselves) how ‘fabulous’ we’ve been doing…but in truth, only the criminals have been doing ‘fabulous’, everybody else has been sucking pond water!

Now there is a movement afoot to restore our failed Justice system but it has zero ‘guidance.’

So-called ‘legal professionals’ have let this situation get out of hand so they CAN’T BE TRUSTED to either rebuild or restore that which is broken.

Where do we turn in a situation like this?

We will have to ‘trust’ ourselves, good citizen.

A Simple Plan has an initial set of laws prescribed within it that can be used as a foundation we can use to re-establish the justice system.

I used the principle of those who must live under the laws should be the sole arbiters of what should or should not be ‘illegal’.

Full Time Law-makers are neither necessary or desirable.

In fact, providing anyone with the, er, ‘privilege’ of interpreting the laws will be prohibited!

For too long we have suffered the, er, ‘machinations of the self-serving’ who claimed only they ‘understood’ the law…

Which flies in the face of one of the most basic premises of law itself, that for law to be effective, it must be easy to understand!

You wouldn’t think you’d need a law that states that premise but indeed we do!

You wouldn’t think it would be necessary to prohibit the ‘practice’ of law but indeed we do!

Most people (until they find themselves on the ‘wrong side’ of an arbitrary legal decision) fail to see the necessity of prohibiting judges!

It is and has been a stupendous failure to let an entire class of self-important twits to make our laws while exempting themselves from them!

This is what happens when you let a certain ‘class of individuals’ claim exclusive provenance over what we all must live by!

So what will it be good citizen,

TRICK

Or

TREAT?

The law is no joking matter…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Beggars Banquet

Greetings good citizen,

After Friday’s ‘fantastic’ (as in fantasy) performance we are once again ‘treated’ to soaring market numbers for, as usual, no discernable reason.

Not a reason a sane person would accept anyway, here we have the ‘cook the books’ version…

Stocks Rise on Upbeat Earnings

Stocks in the United States rose Monday, extending the trend in global markets on strong corporate results and mergers, as well as hope for agreement on resolving Europe’s debt problems. [snip]

the financial sector was up 2 percent, and the materials and industrial sectors were each up by more than 1 percent. [snip]

But we still doubt that the new plan, which is likely to be finalized on Wednesday, will be enough to bring the crisis to an end,” said economists from Capital Economics.

After tanking the markets repeatedly for more than a year, the latest ‘fantasy’ bailout (of the already bailed out PIIGS) does NOT do anything to solve the problem of why the Euro-zone keeps slipping deeper into debt.

Nothing, nada, zip.

Not that the math actually helps…why do they expect anyone to believe that roughly 500 BILLION Euros will cover two and a half TRILLION dollars in debt?

They are ‘investors’ but seriously, who besides that fatally optimistic crowd believes it?

Truth be told good citizen, I’m pretty sure the investors the credibility challenged media keeps referring to are largely imaginary.

NOBODY is that stupid.

But anyway…

After the initial surge the markets traded sideways for the remainder of the day, finishing pretty much where they started…which wasn’t a particularly encouraging sign.

In local news, one of the members of the conservative piss and moan committee was spelling out the ‘demands’ of the Occupy Wall Street movement in typical conservative style.

His list was a complete work of fiction but that never bothers a conservative.

Which got me thinking about the vitriol that I (regularly) heap upon conservatives.

I frequently make allusions to the fact that most conservatives are traitors undeserving of the benefits of civil society and that they should suffer a traitor’s fate.

Well, for the record, I’m not joking.

When the tide turns and the 99% boots the conservatives to the curb, I’ll be one of the many pushing to see that justice is served.

We cannot, as a species, move forward while the self-interested dominate our civilization.

And until steps are taken to, er, remove the self-serving from our midst we will remain a crippled race.

This is why I designed A Simple Plan the way I did. It is intended to place the law beyond the reach of the self-serving.

And since all money is funny, the only thing left is the justice system as far as what’s broken goes.

So no irony should be lost on all of the pointing and wailing over the collapsing financial system, it’s all an act.

The real problem is the justice system, which could (and eventually WILL) snap back into place with a vengeance.

THAT is what has the self-serving liars worried.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Unchained...and more than a little unhinged too!

Greetings good citizen,

Once again the East bleeds while the West (miraculously) watches its profits soar!

There is no rational explanation, nobody is buying stocks except traders themselves (and they don’t intend to hold them, which should scare the shit out of all of you!)

We could ask what is behind this irrational behavior but the answer is obvious, it is all part of the ‘everything’s fine’ Kabuki Dance.

Like the actions of a group of overpaid morons has anything to do with reality…

Yet it does…but not in the way most of you think.

As I have stated before, the only thing the stock market tells us is how rich the already rich have made themselves…the part I keep leaving out is the ‘at the expense of the rest of us’.

As long as you keep buying this bullshit you will continue to get ripped off.

Purely because they say so.

And THAT (to me) is the most fucked up thing about the whole situation…

Let’s have a look at how the corporate owned media spins this unlikely tale

Stocks were lifted earlier this week by modestly better news about the U.S. economy. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits declined this week. Housing construction picked up last month, at least for apartment buildings. Inflation remains low.
Among the companies reporting earnings late Thursday or Friday:

— General Electric Co.'s income rose 18 percent as its lending business recovered, but profit margins shrank in key business. The stock fell 1.5 percent.

— Microsoft Corp.'s income rose 6 percent and its revenue beat Wall Street estimates. The stock rose by a penny.

— Verizon Communications Inc.'s income doubled from last year, mainly because of pension adjustments. Its adjusted earnings beat expectations. But Verizon's bottom-line result masked a weak quarter for its local phone business, which faced a major worker strike and post-hurricane repairs. The stock rose 1.9 percent.

How does that grab you good citizen?

Commerce is BASED on the concept that companies PROFIT from performing/providing goods and services to society.

Did you catch the explanations for the three cited companies’ rise in profits?

The FORMER largest manufacturer in the world (GE) saw a recovery in its BANKING business! Which is actually a bit of ‘misdirection' on the media’s part.

You see, it says right on the back of the stock certificates that GE is a wholly owned subsidiary of the J.P. Morgan guaranty trust.

Oddly, being a profitable ‘bank’ isn't as good a PR message as ‘pretending’ your manufacturing arm returned to profitability…which it DID NOT!

Then Microsoft ‘beat expectations’…talk about your ‘captive audience’! If you’re not a PC then you’re a Mac (and there isn’t a REAL difference between the two!)

Worse, Microsoft being ‘more profitable’ only means their ‘forced migration’ actions are working…big whoop!

And our last ‘example’ of strong profitability is attributed to Verizon screwing its pensioners!

Capitalism at it’s finest!

THIS caused the Dow to climb almost 200 points…WTF!

Let’s have a closer look at GE as it warranted its own article in today’s NY Times business section…

General Electric, the nation’s largest industrial company, on Friday reported net earnings for the third quarter of $3.2 billion, up 57 percent from the same period in 2010 despite what the chief executive called a “volatile” economic environment. [sidebar, GE USED TO BE the largest mfr IN THE WORLD!]

The company said it had operating earnings per share of 31 cents, exactly in line with expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. That excluded the $0.08 per share impact of its redemption of Berkshire Hathaway shares, which it subsequently redeemed this month for $3.3 billion. But the company said it expected that retiring the stock would improve annualized earnings per share by $0.03 in future quarters.

Revenue for the period from July through September, 2011, was $35.4 billion, which the company described as flat when compared with the third quarter of 2010. When the impact of the sale of NBC Universal to Comcast was excluded, the revenue for the quarter was up 12 percent.

Which returns us to a very serious issue, good citizen.

Have you noticed how much of our economy can be attributed to ‘creative accounting’?

Worse, creative accounting has nothing to do with economic performance…but you knew that.

IF we let them continue to ‘whitewash’ true economic performance we will soon be faced with a very real supply problem that the meaningless data helped conceal.

When you’re being told that what’s on hand today is all of the bread you will have UNTIL NEXT YEAR it will be too little, too late to execute the people who ‘cooked the books’.

IF you can find them at all.

As bad as this sounds, once the dam breaks we will (suddenly) be faced with problems that should have been seen months ago…

And the ‘witch hunt’ will begin…after the damage is done!

Don’t let them get away with it.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Crazy Train

Greetings good citizen,

Once again the global stock markets were bleeding from the eye-sockets UNTIL the sun rose on the NYSE, then, ‘magically’ stocks reversed direction.

I need remind no one that there is no ‘logical’ reason for this, nor do I need to point out that market performance has zero relationship with economic stability or the personal prosperity of those not on the ‘inside’ of a decidedly rigged game.

So how do you interpret this load of bull shit?

Isn’t this the exact same CRAP they pulled with the totally doctored retail sales figures last week?

Investors will be closely monitoring all commentary from key players in the summit, especially if anything emerges later from a telephone call between French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A French government spokeswoman said Sarkozy emphasized to cabinet members earlier Wednesday that "Europe has a rendezvous with its history."

While stocks have advanced, the euro has perked up and appears headed back towards the $1.40 mark for the first time in six weeks — when investors are willing to take on more risk the euro usually rises.

By late morning, it was 0.9 percent higher at $1.3862.

Oil prices have also recovered ground on optimism of a comprehensive solution in Europe. The benchmark rate for November delivery was up another 10 cents at $88.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

A lie is only ‘useful’ if you know about it ahead of time…

Which is to point out that there is no ‘fix’ for the (poorly designed) Euro…so rumors of a ‘deal’ should have zero effect on share prices…unless the rumors are the ‘useful lie’ of the day!

While we’re on the subject, Mr. ‘Flat-Earth’ has sprung out of the closet to sound the alarm against ‘Trade Protectionism’!

After spending last week talking with Hong Kong entrepreneurs about a bill, just passed by the U.S. Senate, to clear the way for tariffs on Chinese exports to America if China doesn’t revalue its currency, there are three things I have to say. One, I really hope the people pushing this bill do not give up. Two, I really hope the people pushing this bill do not succeed. And, three, I really hope no one thinks this legislation will make any sustainable dent in our unemployment problem, which requires much more radical rethinking.

I support this legislation in theory because China needs a wake-up call. I know, China never responds to in-your-face pressure — not immediately. But it began revaluing its currency upward in 2005, the last time the Senate brandished a big stick. The fact is, China’s strategy of using low wages and a cheap currency to build up an enormous export-led growth engine — while using its huge market to lure and compel companies to transfer their next-generation technology to China as well — is now hurting both sides.

Geez, Chicken Little was singing a very different tune when China was eating our lunch!

The fact that automation and over production along with the financial ‘hyper-extention’ of the consumer base combined to destroy ‘competitive advantage’ around the world is the primary reason China is ‘all revved up with no place to go.’

A sadly ‘self-inflicted’ wound indeed!

Or was the wound caused by:

I am typing this column on a Dell laptop that says “Made in China” on the bottom. In fact, it was assembled in China — but the design, memory board, screen, casing and dozens of other parts were all made in other countries. And while the machine says “Made in China,” the lion’s share of its value and profit goes to the firm that conceived the idea and orchestrated that supply chain — Dell Inc. in Texas.

The very same crowd that ‘imagines’ all sorts of benefits but totally FAILED to think things through to their ‘logical conclusion’?

Because the collapsing world you see, the one the ‘imagineers’ keep re-imagining for us on a daily basis, was brought to us by people with a decidedly fatal case of ‘myopia’…more commonly known as ‘short-sightedness’.

Which is why there is ZERO truth behind the ‘genius’ of Steven Jobs, he did what EVERY OTHER pinheaded capitalist did. The movement to build a ‘legend’ around him sickens me.

Which is more so an extremely sad indictment of what our, er, ‘leaders’ supposedly ‘value’…

Mr. Friedman owes his position/popularity to his passion for ‘cheerleading’ the extremely destructive movement we now call ‘Globalization’.

He sort of lost some of his ‘cred’ when it became common knowledge he is ‘married to it’ (billionaires that is.)

It doesn’t quite come off the same way when others learn that you will NEVER suffer the ‘downside’ of the theory you so boldly champion.

Why do the super rich ‘love’ globalization?

Because their employees provide them with their largest ‘income stream!’ (the cheaper it is to produce, the more profitable it is for the ‘owner’…)

How sad is it that employees are also customers?

Which is to say capitalism SUCKS…but you don’t have any alternative…yet.

Sadly good citizen, things will get a lot worse before they get any better.

Next stop on this Crazy Train is Barterville. If you’ve got nothing to trade that’s your tough luck!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Market Madness!

Greetings good citizen,

After falling below the, er, ‘strategically important’ 12,000 mark a few days ago it seems the stock market is a ‘bargain’ once again.

Naturally, only an idiot would put actual money in the market (which is to speculate how much ‘leverage’ is in play?)

But let’s flip that rock over and ask where would you ‘park’ money in an economy like this?

It’s a problem nobody should have…but there it is!

In fact, the entire crisis in a nutshell is the inability to service the interest on the mountain of debt the reckless few have piled up.

(To clarify, I refer to loans that never should have been made in the first place and advances on what has proven to be non-existent ‘equity’ as the acts of the reckless few as opposed to the woes of the hoodwinked many.)

In light of the facts, how ‘genuine’ do you think this morning’s market action is?

Hell, stocks sold off by nearly 500 points over the past six weeks, should be some serious bargains out there (by conventional market thinking.)

So, were the markets due for a bounce or is this just more ‘presto-chango’ in an options settlement week?

Stocks on Wall Street rose almost 1 percent at the opening on Tuesday after American and Chinese economic data drew investors into an equities market that has been through six weeks of sharp declines.

In the United States, retail sales declined less than forecast, giving a boost to stocks and some respite to investors overwhelmed by recent weak economic data.

Despite the jump, some investors were still focused on a retreat in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to its March low near the 1,250 level. The index closed at 1,271.83 on Monday.

“The consumer isn’t dead,” said Michael Farr, president of investment management firm Farr, Miller & Washington in Washington. “I question the sustainability, given the high levels of debt that consumers hold and the unemployment rate. But we don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s good news for the day.”

Um, the consumer isn’t dead? It certainly isn’t from lack of trying!
I have in the past addressed the topic of ‘cracking one’s nut’ and how we are approaching a time when it won’t be worth your while to go to work because your paycheck won’t ‘crack your nut’ (cover your expenses.)

Well good citizen, if it weren’t for food stamps a goodly portion of the low end of the income distribution would be ‘unable’ to perform their jobs (and live indoors.)

That’s a trade off many part-time, minimum-wage workers make. Their paychecks cover the rent but without food assistance they’d have to live in the streets! (Because when the choice comes down to live indoors or eat semi-regularly, eating wins!)

Would I be a ‘commie’ for pointing out that their capitalist employers KNOW their employees can’t survive on what they pay them?

Yet we are expected to sympathize with the businessman (who ‘provides’ the job) and pays as little as he does to ‘protect’ his customers. (Which is bullshit, you know he scopes the market regularly and charges every cent he can get away with!

It’s a bad day for Mr. Employer if he discovers HE has the lowest prices around!

The only thing worse than finding out your price is too low is learning that you pay your people higher than the regional average!

Is it any wonder the average business owner is psychotic?

On that note we have this article it’s a visual, you have to follow the link to see it.

A little dementia goes a long way, doesn’t it?

This is another reason I am firmly in the ‘collapse’ camp, there is no ‘rational’ way out of the morass they have created…and it’s idiotic to think people will tolerate that level of painful privation for an extended period.

Yet the dimwits who ‘didn’t see it coming’ consistently predict this is precisely what will happen.

Whereas I come from the ‘actions have consequences’ camp.

If you can’t find grunts willing to do the heavy lifting, the supply chain will break down and then you’ll be totally fucked!

Worse, if you can't find customers who will make it ‘worth your while’ to do what you do, then you won’t do it and neither will anyone else!

Weirdly, this is all looped into the pay scale issue.

If you don’t pay your workers, they can’t pay anyone either!

This is the ‘fundamental flaw’ of capitalism. It consistently overvalues goods while undervaluing labor.

That and the incentives are all wrong, but that topic has already been the theme of many past essays.

Naturally, the above phenomenon forms the basis for my consistent charges of ‘mis-management’ by people who should know better…but apparently don’t.

The question we must answer is how long will our civilization survive with privatized profits and socialized losses?

You should know the answer because it is obvious…not very long.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Snow Day

Greetings good citizen,

Spent today battling ‘planned obsolescence’, the electric start on my snowblower shit the bed but (and it turned out to be a one time deal) the pull starter worked on the first pull. So, the first 18 inches were removed mechanically.

Just spent the last two hours trying to get the starter motor to work because Hercules isn’t strong enough to pull start that stubborn bastard.

Looks like I’ll spend some time tomorrow with the service department at the place I bought the sum bitch to figure out what its going to take to fix the damn thing.

Worse, it’s still snowing out there.

Oh fucking well.

The ‘idiot barometer’ (a.k.a. the stock market) was up again today and as usual this was due to nothing you could discern as increased commercial activity.

Perhaps more interesting is how long these boobs think they’re going to get away with doing nothing while pretending everything is fine.

There’s a question to ask yourself good citizen…IS everything ‘fine’?

Naturally, the answer depends on how you define the purpose of commerce. If commerce exists to enrich its owners, then everything is indeed ‘fine’.

If commerce exists to facilitate participation within a society by satisfying the needs of that society then things aren’t quite where they should be.

Thus should we all find this ‘pretend’ thing more than just a little ‘disturbing’.

You see, the elite can afford to pretend for a damn long time, a hell of a lot longer than you can.

They can keep pretending, all the while beating you down by ‘devaluing’ the money supply until long after you’re dead and gone, your children locked up because they became common criminals just to survive.

Yup, that’s how it’s gonna go down if you keep doing ‘nothing’.

Speaking of ‘doing nothing’, how long is it going to take until to finally realize that the ballot box doesn’t do your bidding? You will NEVER be offered a ‘desirable’ choice…and if you are it will turn on you just like the current occupant of the White House has.

A system that only serves the upper reaches of a society is broken and needs to be abandoned, it can’t be fixed.

The only ones who want to fix it are the ones who broke it in the first place.

Sadly good citizen, life is hard enough without having to ponder whether or not you are already in hell…

It has been a long day and tomorrow holds more, difficult challenges…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Correction

Greetings good citizen,

It seems the (worthless) stock market managed to drag its ass back into positive territory before yesterday’s closing bell.

What does this mean good citizen? Is the economy actually doing ‘better’ than we ‘think’ it is?

That’s what they’d (the manipulative wealthy) like you to think.

Hell the ONLY evidence we have that the mis-labeled ‘Great Recession’ is over is the (totally nonsensical) run up in stock prices.

Was there any reason at all for stocks to finish in positive territory yesterday?

Short answer: NO!

But they did anyway. Worse, stocks were up some 290 points for the week!

Is this a ‘bad thing’, good citizen?

If you don’t own stocks it didn’t make you richer (and even then, only owning the ‘right stocks’ would benefit your personal bottom line.)

So what about the opposite? The Fed buying up its own bonds and putting you on the hook for it, how does that affect your bottom line?

Remember when a cup of coffee cost 10 cents?

The ‘parallel’ here is the stock market was still under a 1,000 when you could get a cup of coffee for one thin dime.

Understand good citizen you are ‘poorer’ today then you were then. In terms of ‘real purchasing power’ you make only a fraction of what you used to make just a few short years ago…and guess where that ‘buying force’ went?

Yup, the fucking stock market!

In a game that is related to the totally subjective ‘value of a buck’, stocks ‘appreciate’ in value when your money loses value!

What’s the real ‘kick in the balls’ here? The same people who benefit from this cock-eyed situation are the same people who get to decide!

What good is fifty dollars an hour when it only gets you what you used to be able to get for five dollars an hour?
Worse, as your pay doubles, prices quadruple.

Just like the fucking foolish stock markets.

They should be shut down, forcibly if necessary!

Understand good citizen, this is PRECISELY what the government SHOULD BE protecting us from!

The fact that there is absolutely nothing we can (legally) do about this untenable situation is way beyond ‘unacceptable’.

Still, you’d like to think people would come together to fight back BEFORE we start finding children that have starved to death, buried in landfills!

Damn, I honestly don’t set out with the purpose of making these posts as ‘grim’ as I can, it is just how it works!

That said, if you can’t handle ‘grim’ then the future isn’t going to be to your liking.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The consumer is wrecked

Greetings good citizen,

How about those headlines, eh? Can you believe that stock market? Up almost 200 points for no good reason at all!

Well, actually it looks like it is up for the usual reason, fabricated/sloppily interpreted data.

Naturally, those clowns in the MSM had to include their favorite buzzword…’surprise!’

Think about that one for a second…for people who are supposed to have their fingers on the pulse of the global economy they sure as hell get surprised a lot more than logic would allow for.

We seem to have arrived once again at that fine line which separates ‘ignorant’ from ‘stupid’. I, for one, am leaning towards the latter of the two…

While ignorance can be fixed, stupid is permanent.

Since the MSM is constantly ‘surprised’ (by obvious bullshit) we must conclude…

Which is to warn you against paying any attention to the agenda driven by our corporate overlords…(to whom)

YOU are the ENEMY.

As we have clearly established on these pages long ago, the stock markets have nothing to do with reality. At best they tell us how the already fabulously wealthy are fairing, not that this alters your circumstances a single iota.

So, as usual, we are left with the mystery of ‘who’ this media Kabuki dance is being preformed for?

Because everybody knows 'The Consumer is Totally Wrecked'

And this is like what, the third supposedly ‘huge’ uptick in manufacturing in the past couple of years? Apparently our definitions of ‘huge’ differ considerably…

It naturally leads one to suspect the very definition of ‘manufacturing’…did the Bush Administration succeed in converting food service into the manufacturing sector?

Are we really counting ice cream cones passed out of take out windows as ‘production jobs’ and a major part of our (new) GDP…the ‘new normal’ is pretty damn frightening if you ask me!

But I digress, let us proceed with Mr. Davidowitz’s analysis:

The consumer is totally wrecked and that's why there's no way this economy's coming back, because the consumer is 70 percent of the U.S. economy....

The consumer is out of money...They have no jobs. We've got 18-and-a-half percent unemployment and underemployment. The consumer's debt is 120 percent of disposable income...The consumer is wrecked.

Mr. Davidowitz is not wrong, the ‘average’ working aged citizen (worldwide) is fairing precisely how s/he is portrayed here…so ‘who’ is buying all of this shit they (falsely) claim China is producing?

Wage cuts and lay-offs do NOT produce a bustling economy, which must be why the stupid MSM is ‘surprised!’

It doesn’t matter what THEY believe, their job is to get YOU to believe in sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everywhere…

This is what the Nazi wannabes continually fail to grasp…lies are lies and no amount of candy coating alters the facts!

Claiming everything is just ‘peachy’ doesn’t make it so…even if you’re only trying to convince the fairly well off.

Because you have already used the misery you’ve created for the ‘redundant’ laboring class as a whip on the dwindling ‘middle (neither here nor there) class.’)

So who is this Kabuki dance supposed to ‘impress’, the kids?

Sick as it seems, it’s never too soon to twist perception in your favor.

They are (well, some of them anyway) your future employees.

This is another damning indictment against our twisted upper class, their abominable misconception of what’s ‘necessary’.

They will stop at NOTHING to cement their continued domination over us and I do mean nothing!

It is a ‘sickness’ and we desperately need to ‘weed’ those infected with it out of society.

This is an acknowledgement that we have a ‘two-pronged’ problem…one is the rules themselves and the other is the people who don’t (and never will) think the rules apply to them specifically.

You can’t make rules for the self-important. It is an exercise in futility.

Ironically, this makes the ‘weeding process’ that much easier.

What needs to be combated is the notion that this sickness is ‘curable’. Which brings us full circle to the ‘stupid/ignorant’ dilemma.

Stupid CAN’T be cured, it is what it is. Self-importance that extends beyond College is similarly, ‘incurable’. If you haven’t gotten over yourself by the time you have reached the legal age of majority (21), chances are you won’t.

This sort of a defect carries with it the bizarre belief that society cannot survive (exist) without slavery (and you’re correct if you desire a bourgeoisie society, a society predicated on the exploitation of others!)

None of us are any ‘better’ than the rest. It is beyond ironic that those who consider themselves a cut above have consistently proven themselves to be the most savage and ruthless (and often the most ignorant!)

It should be a mystery to no one as to why ‘pride’ is one of the ‘deadly sins’.

Hopefully, this puts my assertion into perspective. It is a problem so ancient they preached about it in the damn Bible.

Education was supposed to ‘solve’ this problem but, as you can see, it has only made it worse.

Some of you have probably noticed that many of my posts end somewhat abruptly…because I lead you to the edge of a ‘quagmire’ then abandon you there.

I do this to provide you with something to ponder…I also makes the posts manageably briefer by not getting bogged down on the horns of the many dilemma you’d find within.

Remember, my objective is not to tell you what to think, my object is to give you something to think about!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Head full of Nonsense

Greetings good citizen,

Is has been said that you can fill a man’s head quite full of nonsense and he is still capable of functioning adequately…

Such facts do not bode well for our current situation…

The markets continue to ‘circle the drain’ stubbornly refusing to sink below the ‘psychologically important’ 10,000 level.

Left to our imaginations is what is left in the US to support that kind of valuation? Is half of our 10,000 point Dow due to this being the home of both Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett?

What does the Dow at 10,000 mean?

Ironically, there isn’t ANY explanation for that…none.

How do you like it now?

If a pig is a pig and a duck is a duck then a buck should be a buck no matter where you go.

Yet the Japanese buck is only worth a penny US.

Why? Because Dirtbag says so!

Is that ‘disturbing’ good citizen? You bet it is!

Because ‘Dirtbag’ (who pulls this shit out of his backside) has also decided to repossess your house and cut-off your unemployment because he doesn’t NEED your services anymore!

What you are witnessing here good citizen is the ‘rule of man’ writ large. It don’t have to be logical nor does it have to make sense…are you looking for ‘fair’ in this mess? Don’t make them laugh!

Fair has nothing to do with it, it is the polar opposite of fair. This is hooray for me and fuck everybody else!

And if we don’t like it…

You know what you can do about it…

Is it any mystery why most modern judges have bodyguards?

Retribution is a terrible (albeit necessary) thing.

What you need to understand is both the ‘cheaper there’ and ‘the global race to the bottom’ are totally ‘artificial’.


So what are you going to do about it good citizen?
Because it won’t stop until YOU stop it.

You know it. I know it and more importantly, they know it.

How many of them will we bag ‘right away’ (when things reach critical mass’?)

Maybe ten percent…out of three hundred thousand, ten percent will be a pretty good haul.

How many will we bag total?

This is where I personally think the cheaters have seriously underestimated the public’s thirst for vengeance…I think the total catch will be in the 120 to 140 percent range!

Which is to say a lot of ‘technically innocent’ people are going to pay the price for going along to get along.

How many will ‘get away’?

One or two percent…max.

Why so high a capture rate? They aren’t nearly as ‘smart’ as they think they are.

Ironically, the ones who do ‘escape’ will be savvy enough to ‘blend in’.

What should bum these psychopaths out is the new government agencies will be on high alert for their variety of ‘anti social’ behavior for a real long time.

They will literally ‘unlearn’ their greedy ways. If they fail they will be exiled.

The fiendish part of exile is not being sent to a desolate location naked and alone…because it is unlikely you’ll be alone for a quite a while…

The truly devilish part is being sent to such a place and having people 'just like you' to rely on.

Naturally, all of these ‘rugged individuals’ will know better than any of the rest just how to take care of things in a limited resource environment.

What do you suppose the first order of business will be (for every one of them…)

Yup, making sure that ‘they’ have enough.

Make no mistake about it, if they’re ‘big/bad’ enough, they’re going to take what they want and fuck everyone else!

Just the kind of ‘survival situation’ you always wanted to be in…

This ‘game’ will get more diabolical as it progresses with the bottom line being he who can go the longest without sleep will probably win the day…not that certain ‘alliances’ aren’t possible.

It will be like today’s (considerably less than) ‘reality’ shows, you’ll never be sure who is conspiring with whom and in the end the only one you can trust is yourself.

Who do you trust when the pit is full of snakes?

That question doesn't have a good answer.

So, how many 'wannabes' will get themselves exiled?

That’s a whole different equation and it should ‘consume’ another 20 percent of the population…although that could be high due to the ‘sheep effect’…people who parrot conservative values if only to appear to be on the side that was ‘winning’.

They don’t really care one way or the other…and it’s hard to decide if this isn’t worse than diehard conservatism because it is the pinnacle of stupidity.

Not that being stupid is a crime.

It’s the ‘moral ambivalence’ part of the puzzle that most of us would find reprehensible. This brand of ‘allegianceless neutrality’ is how we ended up in the shit in the first place!

Stupid may not be a crime but ‘I don’t care’ is definitely a ‘sin’…

Until recently, most of us were guilty of being ‘uncaring’. Funny how having the rug pulled out from under you can force you to re-examine your priorities…

People are starting to wonder what can be done about our badly broken political process and how to effect meaningful change.

If we don’t do something and do it quick, it may be too late.

It’s gonna be a real bitch when you can’t venture beyond your own doorstep without a white flag in your mitt.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Creeping Death

Greetings good citizen,

Once again the headlines don’t quite jive with what’s happening in the markets. Yes, the markets are in negative territory, but not nearly as negative as yesterday…

Worse is today’s headline that asks if the (thus far invisible) ‘recovery’ has succumbed to a global economic ‘slowdown’. Yesterday’s import figures tell a rather different tale.

OUR imports are still quite robust! The damning part of this equation is how the trade deficit can persist at roughly $50 billion dollars while most of us are flat broke?

What are retailers thinking?

Understand that retailers KNOW we’re broke, why are they re-stocking their shelves, or more perplexingly, where do they think demand is going to come from…

Naturally, we could be seeing something else entirely, How much of this uptick in imports is due to price increases, the same factor driving profits while payroll/the amount of money circulating through the economy dwindles.

More disturbing is the trend of passing off heavily massaged data, produced by ‘creative accounting’ as economic fact when nothing at all has been done to alleviate the pervasive economic imbalances that plague both the domestic as well as the global economies.

What’s really pissing people off is unemployment is stuck at 10+ percent while we import billions of dollars worth of shit we (were) perfectly capable of making for ourselves!

I say ‘were’ because the equipment necessary to make the junk we now import was either exported with the jobs or it was scrapped…so we couldn’t make this shit for ourselves if we had to.

Sweet arrangement for the capitalist (as it insures we have to buy from them) but as you can see, it sucks for the rest of us!

In my travels today I observed the most damning indictment of the Obama administration to date.

Talk about icing on the cake, this goes all the way back to the president nobody remembers voting for as well as explaining why the past three administrations ‘sleepwalked’ through their dual term presidencies.

We are witnessing the consequences of what happens when we allow the ‘unaccountable’ to make decisions in our name without ever consulting us.

What’s the point of voting when both ‘sides’ take their marching orders from the same oligarchs?

Sadly good citizen, the only ‘option’ left to us is to wipe the slate clean and start over with a new, different way…a way where you aren’t left wondering ‘how the hell did THAT happen?’

In a world where the media isn’t beholden to advertisers for support, the ‘noise machine’ will quickly shrivel and die.

That world good citizen is the world of ‘A Simple Plan’.

Today’s offering will include a hint regarding where to find a copy of ‘A Simple Plan’, part of the reason for creating this site was the plan kept ‘disappearing’ when I posted it as a document on Conceptual Guerilla.

It’s August now and I haven’t seen any new posts or activity over there…(Joe was supposed to be back in July…oh well!)

So the ‘hint’ is that the copy of ‘A Simple Plan’ is among the first posts made to this site. Simply go to the beginning archives of this blog and one of the posts is titled…well, you can read.

Um, the ‘shit’ is getting more bizarre with each passing day.

You’d be a fool not to recognize this as ‘the beginning of the end’

The world as you know it is about to disappear, never to be seen again.

I say ‘good riddance’ but I lament in advance the needless suffering and heartache this transition will inflict upon mankind.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Stupid is as stupid does...

Greetings good citizen,

The Dow is down 90 points as of lunchtime here on the East Coast and the morons at the NY Times are attributing this to today’s Fed meeting.

Mind you, there isn’t an ‘up’ index on the entire freaking planet at the damn moment but the ‘self-important’ in New York are (naturally) obsessed with what happens here in the USA.

Is this a ‘testament’ to ‘American Exceptionalism’ or is the media playing to the fact that most U.S. Citizens can’t see/don’t care about anything beyond the end of their own noses?

Left to your imagination is whether or not the Fed has enough ‘credibility’ left to keep this house of cards from collapsing the week after next?

As it stands right now, most of us would feel compelled to look outside and check for ourselves if Mr. Bernanke commented it was a ‘pleasant day’ outdoors.

Which is another way of saying that the man’s definition of ‘normal’ deviates considerably from the common understanding of the term…

In his defense, he isn’t in a position that allows him to admit to what everybody else knows for a fact. I mean the man admits things are ‘unusually uncertain’ and the markets drop 200 points!

How ‘credible’ can his ‘opinion’ be when an off-hand remark can cause trillions of dollars in market losses?

More succinctly, how ‘reliable’ can this crud we call ‘money’ be when it fluctuates in value according to the opinion of a banker? This is the foundation of our fucking civilization here and the actions of a single individual ‘dictate’ the ‘health’ of the world’s economy!

Is I just me or does anybody else think there’s something radically wrong with this picture?

I am alluding to the, er, ‘unnatural’ level of faith required to maintain the ‘status quo’. If it ‘made sense’ (and I’m sure most of you ‘think’ it does) it wouldn’t seem nearly as ‘weird’.

Not only are we taught to ridicule ‘outside the box’ thinking but we are also taught not to question the existence of the damn box! As far as the ‘status quo’ goes, THERE IS NO BOX, things are as they ‘should be’…

Unfortunately, the ‘natural order’ is mighty unnatural…nor does it withstand close scrutiny…but what do you want for ‘nothing’ (cause there’s nothing in it for you.)

Um, this is the second day in a row that I’ve gone off the deep end and it reads like the mad ravings of a ‘mal-content’ (which is precisely what most conservatives would dismiss it as.)

I tend to agree that it is ‘pointless’ to complain about the way things are if you are incapable of offering a ‘viable alternative’.

In some cases it really is what it is and there isn’t a ‘fair’ solution to the problem.

Thus the ‘title’ of this blog…A Simple Plan. I can ‘bitch’ because I have created an ‘alternative’, a holistic one that works for everybody.

A Simple Plan is so good I’d enjoy living under it! (And that’s the first test of any social scheme! Admittedly, most social schemers design plans that benefit themselves and in this I am no different, I’ll be a lot better off than I am now.)

The exception here is so will (almost) everybody else! You’ll be a lot better off than you are now and more importantly, so will your kids!

Bizarrely, that one tenth of one percent responsible for making everybody else impoverished, they’re probably going to die (rather unpleasantly.)

This is not ‘revenge’; it is a bed of their own making. They will finally be ‘free’ to prove their claim that they can ‘thrive’ without anybody else’s assistance.

Good luck with that!

Will ‘everybody’ love ‘A Simple Plan’? Let’s not be stupid. I believe there is an ‘evolutionary divide’ within our species where most of us understand the value of society and a very small minority is incapable of wrapping their heads around anything larger than ‘I’.

The heinous part of this divide is the ‘natural tendency’ on the part of the majority divide to believe the minority divide can be ‘saved’.

Worse, let there be no doubt that the minority is not hindered by this ‘weakness’. They have and will ‘exterminate’ anyone or anything that stands in their way.

Like cattle to slaughter the ‘threat’ the ‘share and share alike’ majority presents to the ruthless and self-centered minority is the principle reason our civilization is headed off a cliff.

The ‘I/me’ crowd is comfortable with the idea of killing off as many of the competition as they can, leaving them free to pick up the pieces after society ‘cleanses’ itself.

I’m sure this variety of ‘plain talk’ is still shocking to some of you but as events unfold the ‘conspiracy’ becomes easier to see.

It all makes sense if you are willing to look at who benefits.

A very small minority that righteously fears being stripped of what they have claimed as their own.

Is it a conspiracy? Consider if you will just how many ‘crimes’ have been swept under the rug to get where we are today…

It’s a fucking conspiracy all right!

If you haven’t taken the time to read A Simple Plan you SHOULD make it the very next thing you do.

If, after reading it, you don’t understand it, e-mail me, I’ll answer your questions.

I can be reached at gegner@usa.com

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner