Smokescreen

Greetings good citizen,

Oil has, er, regained much of its lost ground just as the stock market has returned to its recent highs…which is baffling because there are no positive economic developments.

How do we account for these ‘positive reactions’ during some decidly negative economic events?

Can you say 'investor optimism'?

Well, the likeliest explanation is what we’re seeing is a ‘Smokescreen’, more financial jiggering that provides the ‘illusion of profits’ where there are, in fact, none.

Naturally, if you know what you’re looking at then the ‘ploy’ becomes obvious…the question without answer is do you know what you’re looking at?

Usual Suspects Now Heavily Involved with Commodity Warehousing

“There is no evidence to suggest they share information…”

Oh sure.

My guess is that this is the primary reason that these firms have gotten involved with commodity warehousing. If the left hand isn’t sharing information with the right hand, with hundreds of millions of dollars in potential trading profits hanging in the balance, I’m Santa Claus.

Via: Wall Street Journal:

About 600 miles from Wall Street, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employees are busy doing deals.

But instead of a sleek office tower, they work in a rundown warehouse deep in an industrial section of Detroit. And rather than trading in stocks or bonds, they move metal—lots of metal.

Goldman’s warehouse on the banks of the Detroit River is one of more than 100 storage facilities controlled by the giant securities firm around the world. The warehouses are part of Wall Street’s effort to forge a new frontier in the commodities markets: warehousing metal.

In the past 18 months, Goldman, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and trading firms Glencore International PLC and Trafigura Beheer BV have snapped up warehouse operators, all of them accredited to house metal traded through the London Metal Exchange, or LME. The buying binge means the four firms now are landlords to about two-thirds of the LME’s entire metal stocks, from aluminum to copper to zinc.

What are the dangers of having a single player behind multiple entities? That single player can create the ‘illusion’ of economic activity when nothing is actually happening.

And if ALL of the players are acting ‘in concert’ then you most certainly have a ‘staged production’ that produces nothing but fiction!

Why is it that over the past thirty years the US has become best known as the place where we sell each other houses for a living?

Now even that canard is broken!

I had a curious incident this morning where I met an individual that was as deeply concerned by the ‘conservative stupidity’ he encounters pretty much everywhere. (Mostly in the media.)

Naturally, you start talking to someone whose only source of information is the corporate owned media and quickly learn just how ‘misinformed’ the average citizen is.

Then you’re hit with the coup de grace, introducing them to the facts doesn’t alter their viewpoint.

It’s the old ‘if the guy on TV lies to you, you tend to buy it because what does a schmuck just like yourself know?

It seems people fail to make the connection that the guy on the TV says what he says FOR A FUCKING PAYCHECK, HE DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT IF IT’S TRUE!

Which is to say that the reading of the War of the Worlds on the radio one Halloween didn’t teach us anything.

Except people tend to ‘believe’ whatever they hear on the idiot box…and THAT was the lesson Orsen Wells was targeting!

How ironic is it that the only ones paying attention were the ‘forces of evil’?

But that is not the only thing the forces of evil have up their sleeves!

After the whole ‘you can buy a house with nothing down’ scam blew up in our collective faces it is still unsettling that nothing has changed…

The fines are paid, a highly compensated individual takes the nominal 'punishment' while keeping the proceeds, the politicians and regulators are paid, and the fraud continues on.

Where is the reform? Why not ban the institution from participation in Fed subsidies and in government financial markets for some period of time? Better yet, why are those who speculate in and game the markets for their own gains with one hand taking cheap subsidy money from the government to 'improve the economy' and economic confidence with the other? Where is the repair of the public trust betrayed?

It is hard to determine if Obama is a Herbert Hoover, or more a Neville Chamberlain, consistently giving ground to the bankers' bully boys. I suspect that like most of the politicians and bureacrats he is without moral principle, rationalizing a grotesque selfishness above honor, oath, and duty, despising the many, worshipping at the altar of greed.

After throwing a sizable stone at ‘Dear Leader’ we return to the corporate owned media for more ‘happy talk’

At the same time, Representative Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican and majority leader, said Wednesday that he would not accept any net increase in federal revenues, and that any money raised from eliminating tax breaks or loopholes must be offset by cuts elsewhere in the tax code.

“If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes,” Mr. Cantor said. “We have said all along that preferences in the code are not something that helps economic growth over all. But, listen, we are not for any proposal that increases taxes. Any type of discussion should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”

White House officials acknowledge the unrest among Democrats. But they argue that Democrats will be in stronger shape politically heading into November 2012 if they help enact a credible deficit reduction deal, allowing them to mount the argument that they protected Medicare from a much more drastic overhaul by Republicans.

Even the Tea Partiers are on the record as admitting we need to increase revenue if we are going to reduce the deficit. (How unfortunate is it for the rest of us that they tend to think this will happen ‘magically’ via more tax cuts?)

So now we have the media created Tea Party holding the Republican Party ‘hostage’ so the wealthy aren’t hit with increased taxes…

And NOBODY believe in the Corporatocracy…

Nobody believes the government has been hijacked by the wealthy! (Or so says THE FUCKING CORPORATE OWNED MEDIA! [wtf!])

And that tank parked in your driveway? It’s the police…seems somebody reported seeing a ‘terrorist’ wearing what looked like a burka stepping out of your shower…

Can you see through the smoke or is it so thick that you can’t see anything and must take the word of ‘trusted others?’

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

To Protect and Serve

Greetings good citizen,

I was somewhat, er, ‘shocked’ to read in the local rag this morning that the ‘Reverse mortgage’ is going the way of the Dodo.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I see this development as one more nail in the coffin of an unworkable capitalist social contract.

Increasingly the message is “If you don’t like it, tough shit!” Which brings us to today’s mystery question

Why Do the Police Have Tanks?
The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force

[snip] Some 40,000 of these raids take place every year, and are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. And as demonstrated by the case of Aiyana Mo'nay Stanley-Jones, these raids have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries.

How did we allow our law enforcement apparatus to descend into militaristic chaos? Traditionally, the role of civilian police has been to maintain the peace and safety of the community while upholding the civil liberties of residents in their respective jurisdiction. In stark contrast, the military soldier is an agent of war, trained to kill the enemy.

Clearly, the mission of the police officer is incompatible with that of a soldier, so why is it that local police departments are looking more and more like paramilitary units in a combat zone? The line between military and civilian law enforcement has been drawn for good reason, but following the drug war and more recently, the war on terror, that line is inconspicuously eroding, a trend that appears to be worsening by the decade. [snip, we jump to the last paragraph.]

It's important to remember that police officers are not responsible for instituting these policies. Over the last three decades local police departments supplied with military uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, and training, were told they were fighting a war on drugs, crime and terror. The politicians who instituted these policies are responsible for the militarization creeping into civilian law enforcement. What might the end result be if the distinction between police and military ceases to exist? The answer is a police state -- and certain segments of our society are already living in one.

Okay, I saw a ‘red flag’ when local cops in sleepy jurisdictions suddenly started sporting bullet-proof vests as part of their ‘safety equipment’.

These are places where a cop could go their entire career and NEVER fire their weapon (although they may have had to draw it a few times. Shit happens, ya know?)

But as the article points out, it didn’t stop at BPV’s. Now it isn’t uncommon to find an automatic weapon in the trunk of a local police cruiser…(but that’s just in case the officer encounters Afghan commandos invading their sleepy jurisdiction!)

What’s the ‘real’ issue here good citizen?

Why do cops have tanks?

Let’s back up a step and ask a more telling question; who is your taxpayer supported police force REALLY there to ‘protect and serve’?

Guess what, if you call in a suspected prowler the same time the local bank has an alarm, guess where the cops are dispatched to first? (Provided you don’t call in the report from the Mayor’s house!)

It’s not your house!

This goes back to the current prevailing legal interpretation of the Constitution that the founders placed ‘property rights’ ahead of EVERYTHING else.

So why DO cops have tanks? Take a gander at the accompanying video if you need proof that ‘the cops’ work for the politicians!

Quartzsite, AZ – The Mayor is challenged under a recall election beginning next month. Accusations have been made. The city council is persecuting the Mayor for giving the people a voice. The Chief of Police is also involved in the scandal.

Jennifer Jones is given the floor at a city council meeting open to the public. While she is speaking the council realizes she’s about to air their dirty laundry and quickly beckons their henchman to cart her off.

The Mayor steps in and says Jones has been recognized to speak and has not violated the council’s rules, but the council ignores him and has the woman removed even as the Mayor continues to contest. The police officers ignore the Mayor of the city and remove the woman. It’s obvious who those cops work for, and it’s not the people.

It is a little unfair to point to Quartzsite, AZ as the next recipient of an armored assualt vehicle but you an bet every officer is required to wear bullet-proof upper body protection!

If the madness continues long enough, sleepy places like the People’s Republic of Arizona (a bright RED state) will have enough military hardware for political operatives to force their will upon the governed!

We have long ago accepted that we are no longer ‘represented’ by those we elect to represent us…that is a charade!

Look at what came of the ‘will of the people’ in the last presidential election, a new leader who has proven so ineffective that literally nothing has changed from the last administration…and he is running for re-election ‘unopposed’…how fucking sad is that!

I don’t know what its going to take to light the powder keg they’re building underneath us, I just know there’s going to be on hell of a big explosion when they do touch it off!

And who will be the most ‘surprised’ by the pent up anger of 'the sleeping giant?'

The people cowering in their tanks (wondering how long they can cross their legs because they know they will die the moment they step outside of the vehicle!)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

As the desert grows...

Greetings good citizen,

As the (economic) desert grows, the ‘infrastructure’ that makes modern life possible continues to crumble under the strain of budget cuts and neglect.

It is the Anti-Tax madness of the Tea Partiers that explains why this movement only has 33,000 members…which is a tiny percentage of our 300 million strong nation!

Yet ‘the media’ (there it is again) insists we are all in touch with our inner ‘tax rebel’, that the thirty thousand members of the Tea Party comprise the ‘tip of the spear!’ (or, again, so the corporate owned media would like us to believe…)

While we are told that this swing towards ‘austerity’ is ‘unavoidable’ in truth it is precisely what you think it is, ‘mismanagement’ compounded by malfeasance.

This is the kind of government you get when criminals are in charge.

I do not excerpt this first article because it fails to make the connection between ‘cause and effect’. You are left to imagine the differences between these school systems are legislative rather than the result of economics.

Garbage in = garbage out…if you can’t (afford to) retain ‘qualified’ teachers, your kids are unlikely to ‘test’ well.

And at the heart of ‘No child left behind’ is ‘teach to the test’, to hell with the facts or the learning process!

Considering the kind of future the elite have planned, the dumber they are, the better!

So what’s the ‘surprise’ in this article? The surprise is that (in the economic desert) marginally ‘better’ districts ‘tested’ about the same as their more destitute counterparts.

We used to be number one in education around the world but there’s no point in raising a ‘smart’ populace if all of the jobs are going to be off-shored to the cheaper there!

As the model our civilization is based on becomes ‘unviable’ those who control commerce on this planet have moved to greener pastures…but not out of ‘harm’s way’.

Once again we need to question what are ‘progressive values’ when those who profess to speak for progressives fall down as they have in these first two articles…

Car ownership, it's becoming clear, simply isn't a sustainable way of life. But with an ongoing budget and revenue crisis on the federal, state and local levels, with conservative governors rejecting stimulus money for high-speed rail, it may be a while before we see the investment in public transit that it will take to fully break from the automobile.

Into the gap have stepped a number of innovative car-sharing companies and programs, allowing licensed drivers to pay fees less than traditional rental car companies and often access vehicles conveniently parked in their neighborhood. Each shared car, it's estimated, keeps an average of 15 cars off the road, allowing drivers to access a car only when it's specifically needed.

As you can see the tone is set and the rest of this article devolves into an insipid advertisement for ZipCar…nothing to see here, move along now.

Chances are good citizen your future will be ‘vehicleless’ not because ‘car sharing’ is an idea whose time has come but because vehicle ownership will be cost prohibitive!

Many states are implementing legislation that will, er, ‘discourage’ vehicle ownership.

And like the ‘make yourself useful’ conundrum, it is not the politician’s problem if you can’t get to work! (You can add this insult to the ‘if you can’t live on what they pay you it’s not their problem, it’s YOURS!)

Which is to ask is it any wonder this stinking, corrupt mess is collapsing?

Let’s have a look at an actual example of the comedy that is local government , complete with a ‘money quote’ from a ‘typical’ politician…

When Engine 5 pulled up to a burning house on Woodlawn Avenue early on March 19, the firefighters were told that a man might be trapped in the back left bedroom. As two firemen trained a hose toward that corner, Capt. Don Ragavage crawled through smoke and flames to search for the missing resident.

It was an inopportune moment for the water pressure to plummet. But that is what happened when Engine 5’s motor, strained to the limit by 16 years and more than 100,000 miles of hard service, abruptly sputtered and died.

Only a month earlier, the fire chief, Buddy Martinette, had lobbied the City Council to replace the cantankerous engine at a session devoted to the latest of Wilmington’s six consecutive budget gaps.

“The mechanics really don’t think it will make it,” the chief warned at the time.

“You need another mechanic*,” shot back Charlie Rivenbark, the Council’s foremost fiscal curmudgeon.

Mr. Rivenbark was not smiling, and once the scattered snickers quieted, none of his colleagues took issue. The fire truck fell off the table for the fifth year in a row.

(* denotes money quote from a typical politician.)

As the story tells us, the unit did indeed ‘fail’…not that the municipality (or its overseers) will be held accountable for their recklessness.

Their defense is ‘they don’t have the money’ (which is pretty damn lame when you consider that money is meaningless!)

This sort of shit SHOULDN’T BE HAPPENING, and the people who let it happen ARE CRIMINALS!

It is funny (but not the least bit amusing) that we keep circling back to the ‘purpose of commerce’ issue.

Does society exist to enrich the owners of commerce (and if we were to go by outward appearances, this is exactly ‘why’ we exist in large, hungry [and largely helpless] groups.) Or does commerce exist to meet the needs of society?

There is very little evidence to support this second idea…although/despite it being the reason behind the ‘corporate charter’.

Well, good citizen, I offer this final article as a ‘counterpoint’ to the preceeding three

A preliminary examination of executive pay in 2010, based on data available as of April 1, found that the paychecks for top American executives were growing again, after shrinking during the 2008-9 recession.

But that study, conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, an executive compensation data firm based in Redwood City, Calif., was just an early snapshot, and there were even more riches to come. Some big companies had not yet disclosed their executive compensation.

So Sunday Business asked Equilar to run the numbers again.

Brace yourself.

The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent. [snip]

Resurgent executive pay has some corporate watchdogs worried that companies have already forgotten the lessons of the bust. Boards have promised to tie executive pay to company success, but by some measures pay is rising faster than performance. The median pay raise for chief executives last year — 23 percent — was roughly in line with the increase in net corporate profits. But it far exceeded the median gain in shareholders’ total return, which was 16 percent, as well as the median gain in revenue, which was 7 percent.

FOR the moment, shareholders aren’t storming executive suites. And while they received a say on pay under new federal rules last year, their votes are nonbinding. In other words, boards can still do as they please.

So I ask (again) are we not being led by criminals? Criminals bent on plundering our nation for their own personal benefit, justifying that plunder by accusing the rest of us being just as greedy and short-sighted as they are?

Sadly, we can no longer tolerate being ‘ruled’ by people who have no appreciation of the ‘consequences of their actions’.

People who wholeheartedly subscribe to the theory ‘it’s not my problem, it’s theirs!’

I know you are tired of hearing it but the destruction of our civilization proceeds apace.

Worse, it is ‘unavoidable’

We MUST start the dialog about ‘what comes next’ or we will find ourselves the victims of the same ruthless scoundrels that corrupted and destroyed the old civilization.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Independence Day

Greetings good citizen,

Happy Independence Day (to my US readers.) Seems ‘independence day’ is a hit or miss sort of holiday. Some places celebrate it and others don’t.

Which is to point out that in most places the celebration merely provides lip service to ideals it supposedly embodies. How those, struggling under the yoke of tyranny, can ‘celebrate’ their ‘un-freedom’ is a cruel joke.

Hell, we all enjoy the day off (and even a few of us still get it off paid!)

How sad is it that most of us don’t; not anymore?

Yet the ‘corporate shills’ still insist that adding to thirty years of corporate giveaways will turn the economy around!

On the face of it, this seems bizarre. Over the last two years profits have soared while unemployment has remained disastrously high. Why should anyone believe that handing even more money to corporations, no strings attached, would lead to faster job creation?

Nonetheless, trickle-down is clearly on the ascendant — and even some Democrats are buying into it. What am I talking about? Consider first the arguments Republicans are using to defend outrageous tax loopholes. How can people simultaneously demand savage cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and defend special tax breaks favoring hedge fund managers and owners of corporate jets? [It is becoming increasingly apparent that the R or the D after a politician’s name is meaningless.]

Well, here’s what a spokesman for Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, told Greg Sargent of The Washington Post: “You can’t help the wage earner by taxing the wage payer offering a job.” He went on to imply, disingenuously, that the tax breaks at issue mainly help small businesses (they’re actually mainly for big corporations.) But the basic argument was that anything that leaves more money in the hands of corporations will mean more jobs. That is, it’s pure trickle-down.

And for those of you too young to remember, the original champion of ‘Supply Side’ economics was that economic ignoramus himself, Ronald Reagan!

And guess what good citizen, there isn’t a business out there that has one more employee than absolutely necessary, so ALL of that ‘extra cash’ goes directly into the employer’s vault…to be distributed as a ‘bonus’ to Senior management.

I’ve already said my two cents on the subject, that every multinational corporation should have their charters revoked and every one that claims the US as it’s ‘home base’, their executive board should all be hung for treason!

Seems I’m not the only one ragging on St. Ronnie this July 4th. Just because Dimitri lives on ‘the other side of the pond’ it doesn’t make his observations any less valid:

Once the Federal Government regulated the banks and finance houses who depended on it for security, status and directions in policy. Then “The Gipper” let them off the leash. He had already come to depend on the industrial and military complex that President Eisenhower had feared.

The Bush family ran with them and the Clinton’s bought the banks and funds idea that the way to equality and diversity was lending large scale in property and consumer goods to the poor who were never going to be able to pay off the debts and therefore provided a major income stream of interest, charges and penalties to the finance houses who lent the money and backed the Clinton’s, the Bush family and later Obama.

This gets more and more complicated but the upshot is now the banks and finance houses provide personal financial security to the Senators and Congressmen who take their advice about policy, decisions and the rest from them.

Thus should Washington be totally ‘dismantled’ and replaced with an interim council that will oversee the competitions for leadership upon which division society is based.

The quicker this transition is made, the quicker the economy will ‘recover’.

Why do I make such a baseless claim?

Simple, because the ‘focus’ of the current system has been the prosperity of the owners. Under A Simple Plan the focus shifts to the prosperity of our entire society!

You will be astonished how well we all can live once we put an end to senseless greed!

And the ‘paychecks all around’ system does precisely that!

Try and play the ‘win the difference’ card and you’ll ‘win’ a one way trip to a hot and sandy hell or a frozen one…but you don’t get to pick!

It is a myth (perpetuated by the greedy few) that ‘we all aspire to great wealth’. The fact remains that the greedy few have more than they can possibly spend…so what fucking ‘good’ does it do them?

Short answer: none!

BUT the mother fuckers DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE IT!

Just a little something to ponder as you chow down of fried chicken and watermelon!

Have a pleasant (as you can manage) fourth!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Myopia (is often fatal.)

Greetings good citizen,

As the old saying goes, when your only tool is a hammer, all of your problems start to look like nails…

The most common use of this analogy is related to diplomacy and the disturbing tendency of the, er, ‘leaders of the free world’ to invade any nation that disagrees with their, um, ‘judgement’.

But, if we were to look at our economic system we would find that we encounter the identical situation. One where everything succeeds or fails based on ‘profit’…(which is really fucked up because money itself is ‘funny’ in more ways than one!)

Sadly this leads us full circle to the ‘stupid’ argument and we don’t want to go there now do we?

Countering the ‘stupid’ argument is the ‘go along to get along’ method of coping with ‘enforced ignorance’.

You are stuck in the unfortunate position of being unable to question money because YOU don’t get to decide ‘terms of payment’…

The (dishonest and rigged) court has the final say on what is and what isn’t money.

Worse, you are now dancing in that disturbing realm of ‘normal’ being whatever the majority thinks it is…which says some mighty strange things about the war on drugs but this brings us back to the power to make decisions BY THEM for THE REST OF US.

What I’m trying to communicate here is how ‘right and wrong’ become irrelevant when the power to decide between the two rests in the hands of the corrupt and self-serving!

Just to make matters, er, ‘more interesting’ we have this report from Mr. Williams over at SGS:

No. 376: General Update
Subscription required
June 30th, 2011

• Real Disposable Income on Track for Second-Quarter Contraction
• An Unlikely U.S. Default Would Hit Dollar and Accelerate Inflation
• New Action to Depress Officially Reported Inflation?

Is it me good citizen or are these bad boys getting more ‘terse’?

Hard to figure if he’s talking about a government shut down engineered by the corporatists as far as the US default is concerned or if something else is afoot. There are all manners of things jumping out of the woodshed as ‘extend and pretend’ starts to falter.

Like this next news item

Director of Australian Reserve Bank: Global Economic Train Wreck Coming
July 2nd, 2011

Via: Sydney Morning Herald:

THE global economy is facing ”a slow-motion train wreck” with Greece only the first nation to be hit, Reserve Bank director Warwick McKibbin has told a Melbourne conference.

Referring to the most recent global economic crisis as a mere ”blip”, he said the coming crisis could undo the mining boom and bring on inflation of the kind not seen since the 1970s.

Related: T-Minus Two Months Until The $500 Billion Rolling Debt Ticking Timebomb Goes Off

I believe the ‘Related’ item here links to the full story if you click through to the original article.

Back to the original thesis: it is well known that central to the ‘great recession’ is the failure of the justice system to, er, ‘correct the imbalances’ created by globalization.

Until this is done there is no hope for recovery

Not that those responsible for the global economic collapse will complain, things are working out just as they intended for them to!

How else do you explain something like this:

Recovery: Older Interns Signal Gloomy Labor Market
July 2nd, 2011

Via: Reuters:

Elizabeth Romanaux puts a brave face on working as an intern at the age of 55.

A media relations manager until she joined the millions of unemployed Americans two years ago, Romanaux spent the spring building contact lists and fetching lunches as she tried to keep alive her chances of resuming full employment.

“You have to suck it up sometimes and do what a 17-year-old would happily do and be happy about it,” she said of her recent stint with a public relations firm in New Jersey.

Once the domain of high school and college students, internships are more common among older Americans who are struggling to find jobs and keep their skills up to date in the worst labor market in decades.

The following is a comment posted by a cryptogon reader that addresses a very basic topic:

One Response to “Recovery: Older Interns Signal Gloomy Labor Market”

sapphire Says:
July 3rd, 2011 at 1:54 pm

Having read the whole article on the Reuters site I was struck by the comments people left. Basically the ruling class have pitted the older and younger generations against each other. Instead of the working class fighting amongst themselves for the pleasure of working for nothing they should be boycotting these so called internships. That would force the greedy companies to actually pay people for their labour instead taking advantage people’s desperation. Working for nothing devalues your labour. I know from experience. Employers think that because you worked for free your labour couldn’t be any good and they dismiss any volunteer or unpaid internships on your resume as nothing. If you don’t value your labour nobody else will. Even interns should be paid a least minimum wage for their menial labour. To do anything else is unethical.

On a ‘straight up’ basis, Mother Nature would reward you with death for doing ‘unproductive labor’…just as the cops would likely bust you for trespassing if you attempted to meet your basic needs with, er, ‘under-utilized resources’

You are effectively prevented from peaceably, er, ‘scrounging’ for your basic needs by vagrancy and zoning laws.

Juxtapose this with an employer’s ‘right’ to refuse you a paycheck and you are left with no recourse but to become a criminal.

How sad is it that our prisons are the most overcrowded in the world?

Which makes you wonder why they are putting the boots to the EU?

Naturally, the answer here is ‘divide and conquer’.

Once the EU collapses, the US will fall right behind…and without a customer base China will be very, er, ‘accommodating’ indeed!

Again, it is hard to tell which is more ironic, that we celebrate non-existent ‘independence’ or that we do nothing about blatant criminal activity?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Eyepopping...or not?

Eye popping…or fraud? You decide.

Um, the weekend edition of the business page displays the market’s performance for the week…and in keeping with the ‘bad press’ aspects of market reporting it seems nobody thought it was significant enough to mention that the Dow Jones gained 648 points this week.

Oh how far we’ve come from the days when the Dow really was a collection of industrial stocks and total market valuation was 350 points.

Yes good citizen, between 1929 and 1932 the Dow went from 350 points to 49 and now a move of twice that ‘value’ in a single week doesn’t even warrant notice from the decidedly fucked up media?

Which leaves us with the original mystery, good citizen, of just what the markets ‘tell’ us?

Ironically, the answer is simple. The answer is we are being ripped off, big time!

What do the ‘truly wealthy’ have in common? They are all major stockholders…which is to say the bulk of their wealth consists of or resides in stocks.

Why is this good citizen? Haven’t you noticed that as money sinks, stocks rise? Considering the speed stocks have rebounded (without a corresponding increase in economic activity) money has been on the express elevator going down!

How else do you account for a 650 point rise in the Dow over a single week?

You’re supposed to brush it off as being the result of the ‘successful conclusion’ of yet another Greek bailout…

Which leads us to wonder how many times they will have to be bailed out before it sticks?

Supposing we admit it and say the stock market is a rip off, then what?

Same old, same old, eh…nothing.

There ain’t a friggin’ thing we can do about it except file it away as one more outrage committed by those we ‘trust’ to uphold the law.

If we were to direct our anger at anyone that anger belongs to those who wear badges…more specifically with the people who give those badges orders…(but the badge weilders SHOULD know better.)

Sort of amazing, isn’t it? When we see just how little accountability there is for people that hold positions of public trust.

And again I’ll remind you that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, ‘an accident’. It is not an accident anymore than the stock market is a reflection of economic health!

We are being systematically ripped off and we’ve been getting ripped off for a very long time.

How long you ask?

The swindle starts right around the same time the Constitution was being drafted. A rudimentary stock market already existed centered on the shipping industry. How that ‘share the risk’ concept blossomed into and all encompassing swindle would take some explaining by someone more versed in the ins and out of the system.

It really is a ‘con job’ from the get go so ‘making sense’ of it is in itself, ‘counterintuitive’. It’s not supposed to make sense; that’s how the rich stay rich!

Under the category of ‘this doesn’t bode well’ I just has a serious miscommunication with my spouse, making me wonder how much of my point is going to get across to the average reader.

Some of this is pretty involved and even I get confused by certain things…which is not to say I’m ‘wrong’ about the stock markets being a huge rip off.

If we were to slam the doors shut on the NYSE tomorrow the world wouldn’t stop, hell, it wouldn’t even slow down because all money is funny!

The ‘bankruptcy’ of the EU is comical because it is impossible for the EU to go ‘bankrupt’…it may not be able to pay everybody who demands payment but most of those claims are illegitimate anyway!

The bailouts are merely an attempt to pay people interest on money they stole in the first place!

Is capitalism broken? You bet your sweet ass it is!

Why are these idiots fucking around with uncollectable debts? Because there isn’t an ‘alternative to capitalism’ that will allow them to keep skating and scamming!

Door number one has fascism behind it and door number two has some kind of communist hybrid lurking in there…door number three lies right here with ‘direct democracy’ (better known as ‘Anarchy’) behind it.

Fascists are fond of equating Anarchy with chaos because they don’t believe that we, as a species, are capable of ‘self-rule’.

How ironic is it that they believe they are the only ones fit to rule.

How do they explain the failure of the current regime?

The current regime weren’t ‘genuine’ believers who dropped the ball when they were implementing global economics…

But we know that isn’t true!

Economics 101 tells us unequivocally that all economies are local and the only way to globalize is through a universal monetary union that is impervious to manipulation!

Like the monetary system outlined in A Simple Plan.

When I point out that ASP is ‘holistic’ I mean it both ways. Not only does it work in all aspects of life but it works best when implemented worldwide!

Because, at the end of the day we really are all in this together!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Economic nincompoop(s)

Greetings good citizen,

Yesterday’s busy schedule prompted an earlier than usual post just as today’s roster threatens to make the post tardy.

Be that as it may, the subject on the eve of this Independence Day weekend is economics and the economy...

Which wouldn’t be complete without first discussing idiots and ignoramuses!

Let us begin with this quote from ‘Dear Leader’ who proves himself to be a bit of both when it comes to the subject of economics…

“Today, our administration is trying to take those steps, so we’re reviewing government regulations so that we can fix any rules in place that are an unnecessary burden on businesses. We’re working with the private sector to get small businesses and start-ups the financing they need to grow and expand. And because of the partnership that we’ve launched with businesses and community colleges, 500,000 workers will be able to receive the right skills and training for manufacturing jobs in companies all across America — jobs that companies are looking to fill. [On what planet would we find this ‘other America?’]

“In addition to the steps that my administration can take on our own, there are also things that Congress could do right now that will help create good jobs. Right now, Congress can send me a bill that would make it easier for entrepreneurs to patent a new product or idea — because we can’t give innovators in other countries a big leg up when it comes to opening new businesses and creating new jobs. That’s something Congress could do right now.

Um, reading through these two simple paragraphs the word ‘dolt’ comes to mind. The very first sentence assumes a problem that doesn’t exist! This brings us to the second sentence and the reality that all of the education in the world will not help you get/hold on to a job that has been ‘off-shored’.

Then again we have the use of the word ‘America’ as opposed to the more specific USA. Maybe he’s referring to job openings in the Southern Hemisphere we need to train for.

I shouldn’t need to point out that it is NOT ‘excess regulation’ that is putting a damper on ‘innovation’, it is tariffs and other anti-competitive legislation that is stifling new and improved products and processes.

The assholes standing athwart progress are the same ones who ‘purchase’ these ‘protections’ for their market niche…so THAT ain’t changing anytime soon!

The only thing Beavis is trying to do is make his re-election not look too outlandish!

If there’s anything to re-elect him to…which is another issue altogether.

It is MY OPINION that most people are, er, ‘ignorant’ when it comes to matters economic, a situation that didn’t always exist.

Not that long ago the vast majority of the population participated directly in the markets.

Most of us were farmers and the rest were factory/office workers.

Now the ‘agrarian’ side of the economy is dominated by large agri-business conglomerates that operates on a global level…a very dangerous situation indeed.

Worse, it is even more dangerous than it appears.

Because we no longer participate directly in the economy we no longer, er, ‘concern ourselves’ with the bigger picture.

We let the big operators ‘handle’ matters they have no right to decide…yet we have no way to stop them.

What am I babbling about?

Economics 101…ALL FUCKING ECONOMIES ARE LOCAL!

This does not apply to ‘global’ operators. That’s why the ‘global economy’ is so fucked up!

Still don’t get it, do you?

You need to make money, I need to make money…the shithead who operates on a global basis needs to make money…the difference is shithead doesn’t need to make money locally…only you and I do.

In order for shithead’s global empire to work he needs his empire to be mostly devoid of competitors because it’s all about ‘market share’…if you can’t capture sufficient market share, you go bankrupt!

The defense of shithead’s action is that everybody wins with lower prices…

But money is meaningless!

So ‘lower prices’ are also…meaningless!

Worse, when push comes to shove and shortages set in, money will be worse than meaningless; it will become worthless!

But you ‘don’t get’ that one either…

This brings us full circle to the issue of the ‘purpose of money’.

We have been misled into equating money with work, the more money we have the less work we have to do (with the operative phrase being ‘we have to do’.)

Actually the amount of work doesn’t change. This is why counterfeiting is illegal…not that the banking sector pays any attention to that little detail!

Win the lottery and quit your job, they sort of go hand in hand! Ironically, ‘win’ controlling interest in a viable income stream and NEVER have to work again!

This is what the ‘pirates’ who run our society do; this is what the ‘stock market’ is all about!

It’s a huge rip-off and it would all be illegal except the underhanded thieves took control of the justice system a long, long time ago…making anyone connected with it a criminal.

This also means the task of restoring order/civilization just got that much more difficult…but that doesn’t make it any less necessary.

Because we didn’t run off the edge of the cliff by ‘accident’, the greedy criminals pushed us off!

I know this stuff just bangs the shit out of your worldview, that’s why you can leave the task of sorting out who is and isn’t a criminal until later…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner