Debt Rattle December 13 2020
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December 13, 2020 at 10:14 am #66769Raúl Ilargi MeijerKeymaster
Detail of a fresco from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii, 2nd century BC • Sputnik V Likely Provides COVID Immunity For 2 Years, Pfizer Fo
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 13 2020]December 13, 2020 at 4:06 pm #66771NoiretteParticipantMr House asked: Where did c-19 come from again? Have we figured that out yet?
Imho this qu. is vital.
One answer. (I’m not a med. doc or a virologist – and might list many questions and some objections)
Dr Luc Montagnier, co-winner of a Nobel prize for discovering the HIV virus, says that the Sars-cov2 virus is a human creation. Montagnier is derided as a nut-case in F. MSM, since a long time.
He says it was manufactured in a lab as a part of an effort to create a vaccine for HIV, the virus somehow escaped from the level 4 lab in Wuhan – they were working on bat-corona-viruses.
sidebar: In Spring 2018 alarms about safety at the Wuhan lab were signaled by US authorities. The US collaborated with that Lab, visited it.
link > Daily Mail, yeah, — a short summary w-out paywall http://dailym.ai/2W7MRZe
link > Mint, gives a brief description of an interview of Montagnier. Eng https://bit.ly/3a1Gxe2
the interview – intro text, audio, in F https://bit.ly/3a3tn09
And now in Australia a Covid vaccine trial is stopped because of false HIV positive tests.
ex. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55269381
That can’t be accidental, no way.
December 13, 2020 at 4:12 pm #66772NoiretteParticipantDecember 13, 2020 at 4:22 pm #66773Dr. DParticipant“an electronic krona based on the same blockchain technology that underpins digital currencies like bitcoin.”
Doubt it. XRP is a “crypto” that isn’t a crypto at all. It’s a private ledger, like an Excel spreadsheet run from Citibank’s basement. They can add, remove, edit, anything they want, you won’t know. Just like now, with the Fed/Swift system. That’s the OPPOSITE of crypto, and not reading Sweden since I don’t live there, that’s what the Fed coins and others are reputed to be. Of course.
“UK Ministers Warn Supermarkets To Stockpile Food On No-deal Brexit Fears (R.)”
Remember when UK would perish from even THINKING about leaving? The Pound would collapse? Business would end? FTSE would drop 90%. Yeah, more threats. EU will NEVER EVER let Britain leave. They will nuke them first, except they don’t have a military, they have a bunch of limp-wristed gum-flappers. But here you go: how many years is it now since the referendum? How many both open and underhanded attempts to stop democracy? And still at it, nobody taking it seriously and moving wheels?
Speaking of food: news back in Yankee-land. Food supply and distribution here is shocked and terrible, and worse, no news reporting on it at all, which means it’s real. Weirdest events, some totally random: scarcely-usable toilet paper, only one brand. …But too much of it. Whole peanut butter shelf wiped out, except one brand in one weird size. No bread in one major store, every offered variety of 30 breads in the store next door. Shelves almost always empty down whole rows: curtains maybe, something random. Yet endless Christmas decorations, something also from China and equally unnecessary. Oil, for example, car supplies are fully available. Car parts randomly unavailable.
And no price rises anywhere to ration supplies.
So basically we are Argentina, or any Socialist countries: you can get all the bacon you want for $1, but there isn’t any. We provide everything at a reasonable cost, but the shelves are empty. You can get anything you like here, just like any 1st world nation, but here in the 3rd world, it will appear only once in surplus for one week and if you want any you’ll have to stockpile it at home and trade with your neighbors.
So when you set up a fully-Soviet, centrally-planned, rapacious, monopolistic, competition-free, oligarchic system, you get Soviet, starvation, hardship, impoverished, polarized, totally unworking, nation-crippling results. Congratulations: you have arrived where you were heading.
Also not in the news, (mostly) because they just report “cases” that aren’t cases and mean nothing with a test 90% false positive, the hospitalization rates ARE going up into danger territory, and that IS real. Now I wouldn’t trust a second what they claim that is, and YES Flu goes up and even overflows into parking garages every year now, (unlike, say the ’50s when we were “Capitalist” health care) but I’d be shocked if it weren’t COVID somehow at root. Here’s the problem: One, they disrupt all their wards and procedures by having “clean” and “dirty” areas. That makes them less efficient in their use of space and resources. Two, they may have had an attack of a year’s delayed care, that is, all those non-cancer-screenings came due. Three, still hearing both Heart Disease and Influenza have been cured by Covid and no longer kill anyone, so try to clean up the numbers/lies here as to what’s ACTUALLY happening. Four, they did f* -all, literally nothing in the whole year they were screaming about a “Second wave” that you could guess would happen the minute Vitamin D drops. That is, they have NO MASKS (N95 of course), no people, no wards, no planning, no therapies, nothing.
Hey, you’re the smart guys, you have white coats and claim to have graduated from somewhere, you couldn’t figure out how to HIRE anyone in the world’s biggest recession and unemployment cycle? No? Can’t figure it out? Governor suddenly can’t figure out how to borrow money to “stimulate” high wages in healthcare? In a police state Napoleon would be green with envy for, can’t figure out how to activate the State National Guard? Can’t figure out how to re-open all those perfectly-intact abandoned hospitals they been closing for 20 years? N O P E .
…And you wonder why I have no respect for them at all, and if they told me my temperature was 98f I’d grab the thermometer and look for myself. Lying, cheating, thieving, *ss-covering, weasel-minded, double-talking, mass-murdering, or at least mass-neglecting, fiends. Who think after this I should or would listen to or credit a thing they say after failing the whole state and making, expecting, demanding 6-and-7 administrative figures for the privilege of failing every person, who slowly dies.
…Oh and I’m ALSO mad about their murdering everybody ELSE with the economic shutdown. Double-the-murder, double-the-fun. As Texas/CA shows, didn’t matter, just like the most illiterate, uneducated boobs like me said a year ago. So IF we had an ECONOMY, we MIGHT be able to come up with the goods, the money, the masks, to provide all this additional health care we need. Now it would be a miracle if we could.
N O P E . We provide neither, and now slowly the shelves are empty, as they soften us up into total ruin and death with slow, siege warfare on mankind itself. War on POOR men. It’s probably $10T transferred to the richest already, and they’re buying bonds ALONE, one mechanism, NOT including shutting businesses, NOT including stimulus checks, NOT including deficits, JUST central bank private bond purchases, of $2 BILLION dollars. A DAY.
Gee, why dat Dow go up? Why dem rich get richer? Such a mystery.
Applause all ‘round. Socialism doing what Socialism does. Murder, inequity, oppression, and despair. All middle class wiped out. Maximum percentage of lives ruined. No gains made. They aren’t going to stop until you stand up and stop them.
December 13, 2020 at 4:32 pm #66774Mr. HouseParticipantAs far as i’m concerned C-19 is a crime, and we’re watching a cover up.
December 13, 2020 at 4:42 pm #66775Mr. HouseParticipantJust like the GFC, it was a crime and we watched the cover up.
December 13, 2020 at 5:01 pm #66776Mr. HouseParticipantIraq war, 9/11, crimes and we watched the cover ups. And wouldn’t you know, it was the exact same group of people running the show. Perhaps they have so little respect for us they just think they can do this forever and we’ll never call their bluff.
December 13, 2020 at 5:05 pm #66777Mr. HouseParticipantRaul, what do you think the average age of your readers is? The thought crossed my mind while reading comments on NC the other day. I would imagine the average age of someone reading and commenting at NC is in their 60’s. Old hippies who went yuppie and now hope they can redeem themselves by screaming at other people about not wearing masks.
December 13, 2020 at 5:31 pm #66778zerosumParticipantIn addition to what Dr. D said,
I’ve always hear the seniors commenting on the younger generation of not being as “good, capable, devoted, tough”, etc as when “we” were young.
Our societies has multiple complex systems of rules, regulations, standard practice and procedures to follow so that everything will keep functioning.
However, I am seeing, more and more, that the gears are gumming up and things are not functioning as they were designed to function.
What I’m seeing, that our systems are breaking down, has nothing to do with “ism”.
Its because the leaders, supervisors, foreman, enablers, are not doing their jobs.
Too many of them are not shouldering their responsibilites, don’t want to be liable, and work smart not hard, by delegating all their work to someone else.December 13, 2020 at 5:34 pm #66779Mr. HouseParticipant“Too many of them are not shouldering their responsibilites, don’t want to be liable, and work smart not hard, by delegating all their work to someone else.”
+1000
December 13, 2020 at 5:41 pm #66780Mr. HouseParticipantWhen i talk to people my parents age 65 or so, they don’t care how the stock market gets to its valuations, as long as they get to collect on it. Greed and Fear, seem to work best when you want people to give up things they “believe” in.
December 13, 2020 at 6:06 pm #66781Mr. HouseParticipant“Imho this qu. is vital.”
And it never will get answered, because even if it wasn’t released intentionally and only “escaped” from a lab, the fingers would still be pointed at them. People would demand all research like that be stopped, and we can’t have that now can we. And my oh my the lawsuits, can you imagine the class action lawsuit that would occur. They never accept blame nor do they accept alternatives to their way of doing things, its like we’re ruled by 1000 hillary clintons.
December 13, 2020 at 6:12 pm #66782Doc RobinsonParticipant“How many Australians are still stuck abroad after 11 months?”
More than 30,000 are reportedly waiting to return to Australia.
In January, about 2.3 million people came to Australia. By September, the figure was 16,720…A similar collapse in travel has occurred across Asia, where restrictions are tougher than in the United States and Europe, though without Australia’s tight quarantine caps. Visitors to Japan fell to 13,700 in September from 2.7 million in January; to 64,000 from 1.3 million in South Korea over the same period; and to 13,800 from 2 million in Vietnam…
It is the quarantine system that has allowed us to go back to a semi-normal state… When they arrive, travelers are escorted under police or military guard to sealed hotels, where they are not allowed to leave their rooms…
The last coronavirus case diagnosed in the community in Australia was a cleaner, on Dec. 3, who works in a hotel where travelers from overseas are locked in their rooms. Among those in quarantine, 62 cases were identified over the past week — cases that policymakers say illustrate the danger of repatriating more citizens and residents.
December 13, 2020 at 6:56 pm #66783Mr. HouseParticipantWhy do these people never quit? They believe in something so much, sexual harassment is bad (i agree) but they never quit the job where this is happening? Only years later do they ever mention it. A combination of greed and fear perhaps?
PS Gov meatball should be on trial for sending infected into nursing homes to infect more older people and goose his fatalities numbers.
December 13, 2020 at 7:20 pm #66784phoenixvoiceParticipantI’m really curious about the long lines reported at food banks throughout the US. I have had an income well below the federal poverty line for eight years (my ex successfully hid his income from the commissioner overseeing child support hearings…it’s a long story.) I’ve gotten food from a foodbank regularly (about once per month) and have been on food stamps for 8 years. I’m familiar with the lines of the local foodbank — rarely, you can walk right in, register, get food and be out in 15 minutes, but usually it takes a little over an hour and I have to plan accordingly. During the pandemic, I’ve had many more experiences of the former (15 minutes or so) and I think the absolutely longest I’ve waited from first arrival to leaving was 30 minutes. From my end, it is difficult to ascertain the exact reason why — although I’m sure the food bank knows how many people it is serving, the information is not readily available. The volunteers have been replaced with National Guard, and we don’t get to go around and select our food during the pandemic, it is delivered to the car pre-selected. However, I suspect that either the local food bank traffic has been reduced somewhat, or possibly stayed about the same or slightly increased, and the lower wait times are due to increased efficiency because choosing food has been taken out of the picture.
This is a hyper-local observation, so I’m not sure how it relates to the larger picture — perhaps many of the usual recipients were older folks who have been scared to go out? Maybe they are getting their food through some other manner now, some sort of delivery? Perhaps, because I live in Arizona where lockdowns have always been pretty light-handed, and right now the only Covid rule in affect that affects most everyone are the local mask mandates for stores, and some school districts that are doing online only learning, the economic downturn is less steep here? Perhaps the numbers seeking food at the local food bank will increase markedly if unemployment runs out at the end of December?
Not sure what it means, but I find it curious.
December 13, 2020 at 7:26 pm #66785RototillermanParticipantYeah, Mr. House, I’m thinking we’re not far off from the formation of Covid-19 truth commissions. Virologists and doctors for COVID 19 truth dot com. Grab the domain while you can.
December 13, 2020 at 7:37 pm #66787zerosumParticipantHang your head is shame for letting USA gov. prevent trade
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-sends-ship-to-load-venezuela-oil-in-defiance-of-sanctions/ar-BB1bTrxj?ocid=msedgntp
Iran Sends Ship to Load Venezuela Oil in Defiance of Sanctions
Lucia Kassai and Fabiola ZerpaTehran has been supplying gasoline, food for Venezuela while Caracas has supplied gold as payment for the assistanceRelated: Biggest Iranian Flotilla Yet En Route to Venezuela With Fuel
December 13, 2020 at 7:55 pm #66788Bill7Participant‘Why this campaign of terror? Never outside war time have populations been subjected to such outrageous assault and battery by government propaganda machines’:
Outstanding piece, I think.
December 13, 2020 at 8:33 pm #66789phoenixvoiceParticipant@ Dr D – something to think about
“So when you set up a fully-Soviet, centrally-planned, rapacious, monopolistic, competition-free, oligarchic system, you get Soviet, starvation, hardship, impoverished, polarized, totally unworking, nation-crippling results. Congratulations: you have arrived where you were heading.”Lenin told the USSR before his death that although their goal was “socialism,” what they had achieved a few years after the Russian Revolution was “state capitalism.” State capitalism is where the (major) business owners have been replaced by “the state” or a political party (i.e. the former USSR’s Communist Party or CCP.) Once Stalin ascended to power, he told the people of the USSR that they had achieved “socialism” — the USSR economy had not changed significantly in the interim years — this was doublespeak on the part of Stalin.
Capitalism is very unstable — there are economic downturns every 4-7 years on average. Another unstable feature of capitalism is how it vacillates constantly between being a competitive playing field of small and/or innovative players and a non-competitive field of monopolist or oligopolist players. Markets tend to distribute goods and services efficiently when both the buyers and the sellers are all on more-or-less equal footing — i.e. buyers all have adequate means to purchase what they need and to supply many of their wants, and sellers do not have so many resources that they can manipulate the buyers (i.e. advertising campaigns that misrepresent their products/services, monopolies that restrict competition, buying up all the patents of products that could potentially be better than their own, etc.) However, over time capitalism tends to naturally accrue profit and resources into the hands of the few. (Piketty proved this a few years ago.) Minor wealth/income inequality is not a problem in an economic system nor in a society, but when wealth/income inequality becomes very large, markets become inefficient at distributing goods and services — the price of scarce items gets bid up so that many who need/want them are unable to get them, and simply go without. While this is not critical for some items — such as art pieces of famous masters — it is socially catastrophic for others — such as when the epipen price is so high that people who are highly allergic and ought to carry one around do not have the financial resources to do so. Or when the wealthy are buying up all the milk to give their cats, and impoverished families do not have the means to buy milk for their children.
The reason why governments that fully support capitalism “interfere” with the market is because without some sort of regulation it became apparent during the Great Depression that there was a real probability that the impoverished folks might rise up and overthrow the entire system. Instead, in the US, FDR gave us The New Deal — which was a way to appease the masses who were in economic pain — and a way to save capitalism from being upended in revolution, and maintain the economic power of those who had that power in the existing system. In Germany during the same time period, economic pain led to the rise of Hitler.
In my view, without government intervention, unregulated private capitalism will give us, “… starvation, hardship, impoverished, polarized, totally unworking, nation-crippling results….” Although the USSR failed, the People’s Republic of China has not. In fact, this system is currently ascending in world power. Do I lionize China? Certainly not — but to ignore its economic success is to put one’s head in the sand.
What is really needed is a system that is free of monopoly, free of oligopoly, free of top-down control, includes enough competition and wealth/income inequality to give people incentives and goals, as well as enough shared prosperity that we meet in marketplaces more or less as equals. Scarce items need to be allocated in some fashion to those who need them most, not merely to those who have access to the most wealth. We need a system that prioritizes the needs of local economies that serve local folks — because it is when we meet face-to-face that we have compassion for one another and our better natures tend to be activated. We need a system that doesn’t throw local economies under the bus to serve some far away goal or need.
Often, those who praise capitalism like to place it in the context of a small town, where transactions are face to face, where business owners care about the livelihood and well-being of their employees and customers. (I understand that desire — I run a small business, I have had an employee at times — I paid her when I couldn’t pay myself. I work directly with my clients.) Perhaps what needs to be praised is that local, face-to-face economy that prioritizes human relationship along with economic relationship. Although capitalism may have been birthed in this small-town setting, it has never stayed there. Due to capitalism (granted, there are other social drivers as well,) we have mega-cities, mega-corporations, and mega-nationstates. The face-to-face transactions that capitalism started with are in today’s economy often either non-existent, or the faces on the “sellers end” are low-end employees who have little to no power given to them to actually act on any compassion they may have for the buyer. This is by design — having compassion for buyers does not lead to the greatest level of profit being extracted from the transaction for the seller’s organization.
Rather than fight over whether the economic titans in capitalism should be private (such as has been the case in most cases in the Western-dominated world) or dominated by a political party (i.e. The Communist Party in the former USSR or current CCP,) I’d rather participate in discussion of what sort of system could achieve better results than capitalism. We have some passing familiarity with alternative economic systems — feudalism, slavery, tribal, etc. Can we take what we’ve learned from capitalism — take its best parts — and incorporate it with new ideas so that our economy does a better job serving ALL people involved and encourages wise stewardship of the Earth and its resources?
December 13, 2020 at 8:38 pm #66790Dr. DParticipantLiving in America, you can’t take responsibility living in a world of cheats and toddlers because the first man who takes the slightest responsibility will be blamed for everything that happens. Anything in the office, on the floor, the block, any problems in the whole city will be blamed on this poor, naive, trusting soul who had the good intent of taking his logical and appropriate responsibility. The other 200k people living in the city, abdicating all responsibility, shirking every duty known to man or adult, doing nothing, will sleep like a babe every night having blamed and walked away. Hopefully he would be jailed then executed for his failure to, you know, stop COVID nationwide despite being the Janitor.
No, you can’t take responsibility in a world of victims, liars, and indolent blamers. Nothing is ever my fault. It’s YOUR fault. SO why don’t YOU go do some work while I eat cheetos and complain?
Three things here:
#7: “Thou shalt no steal.”
#9: “Thou shalt not bear false witness (and lie).
#10: “Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s goods”, say “oooh, pretty, I want some, give it to me now, you’re rich, I’m poor, so I deserve all your stuff.You get YOUR stuff. If you’re lucky, probably people will undoubtedly just give you stuff. That’s a happy bonus.
Guess why? If you DON’T follow these rules, nobody makes ANY stuff, and you all starve together. If you lie, cheat, and steal, nobody’s going to make or do anything? Why should they? You’ll just take it, and not only will they not have it, they’ll be helping thieves, murderers, and lazy connivers. I’d not make stuff and live poor JUST TO PISS THEM OFF and not let them prosper. Given 100 years of Socialism, apparently everyone agrees with me.
If the society has no honesty, no responsibility, and only envy and violence, nothing can help them. One man alone can do little except adjust to the weather.
December 13, 2020 at 8:45 pm #66791zerosumParticipantphoenixvoice
What is really needed …. ????? ….. a controller to make lalaland a reality
December 13, 2020 at 9:14 pm #66792Dr. DParticipant“without government intervention, unregulated private capitalism”
It’s an interesting argument, focused on definitions. WHERE on earth has there ever been a lack of government intervention? People exist, and as soon as there are three, someone’s in charge. Get over 1,000 and there’s a government. When has it ever been unregulated? As far as I know, Thou shalt not murder, steal, etc… So when a company poisons a river, then commits fraud on their customers, I’m pretty sure it’s a crime. Always has been, before the first corporation, and no government anywhere at any time dares even CLAIM that it isn’t — regardless of whether they actually enforce it or not.
So there IS no “unregulated” capitalism. Fraud is fraud. Theft is theft. Murder is murder. The problem you seem to find is that the government does not enforce the laws of the civil society. Is that “Capitalism’s” fault? “Capitalism” just means you can make and trade stuff. Your neighbors aren’t allowed to steal it. That predicates a government that prevents the stealing and both enforces and ajudicates justice. Although with only three humans the individual himself will mete that justice, Capitalism basically depends on a functioning government, rule of law, and functioning society. And the rules must be reliable and can’t change constantly to create fake winners and losers.
So where is the drawback here? You say monopolies. Who enforces them? Government. Who regulates them? Government. Who violently attacks any attempted competition in epipens seeking to fill the human need? Government. Who is creating unjust laws that benefit these monopolies? Government. Who is taking the bribes to accomplish this? Government. Who isn’t enforcing bribery laws on themselves to make this happen? Government. Who prevents alternative means to solve these problems, not only in competition, but in health, in justice, in services like social welfare? Government.
So if the people allow government to do all these things, allow, love, support, enthusiastically vote for, fight and die for, the people in government who most strongly malign, bankrupt, imprison, kill anyone who reveals them or the crimes they commit on behalf of the wealthy, what am I going to say? A man had gold. He offered it to the Senator. Was he arrested for the bribe? Was the Senator? Then the illegal, unjust crimes they committed in exchange for this gold, were any of those arrested, protested, did you the citizen rise up and shut them all down? No. You blame the idea that people should be able to make things. You say they don’t own the things they make and need permission to trade them. You say people shouldn’t be prosperous, but impoverished, as that gold makes crimes. …If gold makes crimes, you’ve ain’t seen the crimes that the LACK of gold makes. That’s the real paint-peeler.
“Capitalism” is not society. It’s not meant to be. It’s just making stuff. YOU are society, which has religious, justice, familial, ecological, and a thousand other considerations and responsibilities. The whole society has failed justice, failed the poor, failed to prevent theft, failed to stop bribery, extortion, blackmail, murder. You blame “Capitalism” for that? Blame yourselves. A complete lack of responsibility, total abdication of all SOCIAL duties, not economic ones, of all RELIGIOUS morality, not market-based ones. If you clean up all that, Capitalism will reflect your morality and justice with great and responsible behavior.
…Meanwhile, if you outlaw it, you will create worldwide poverty, the desperate, violent crime that accompanies it, a violent black market run by ruthless warlords and racketeers, and STILL the corrupt, violent, unjust government perched on top of the dung heap. Yet “Capitalism” will continue to exist and prosper, whether you allow it or not. You can get a 14-year old hooker to deliver 10 bags of coke and a full-auto right now with a phone call, and you can murder her and pay off the judge in every town. Is that “Capitalism”? No, that’s humanity refusing to do their job, and giving up, ceding all power, asking the government to do what THEY refuse to do for themselves. …And guess what, when all men cede all religion, all society, all responsibility and power, things go badly.
I’m going to keep making and selling stuff, with or without your permission. But if you don’t give me permission the price of all things will be much, much higher, and you’ll be a lot, lot hungrier.
December 13, 2020 at 10:55 pm #66795chetttParticipantDr. D
Enjoyed your very well stated comments on capitalism but I’d like to add my own thoughts on one more comment that Phoenixvoice presented.Phoenixvoice Re: Piketty
” However, over time capitalism tends to naturally accrue profit and resources into the hands of the few. (Piketty proved this a few years ago.) ”Piketty was completely wrong. Capitalism is the victim here. Capitalism doesn’t tend to naturally accure profits. Not at all. It is the capitalist (would be plutocrats) who take advantage of the system and the government to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few that distort capitalism into plutocracy and destroy the capitalist systems that have served the people so well. Once the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few then it’s no longer capitalism. Capitalism is dead, Plutocracy rules. A proper government’s duty to it’s citizens is to keep the capitalist system from becoming a plutocracy.
Capitalism is at the core of human nature. The desire to explore, create and improve one’s lot in life is driven by clever human who enlist other humans to help create their visions. It is not so much the job of government to regulate capitalism as it is to protect the ever evolving human nature of capitalism from a hostile takeover. Unfortunately most “bought and paid for” governments choose to be part of the takeover.
December 14, 2020 at 12:29 am #66796John DayParticipant@Phoenix Voice: Thanks, Sister. Good work. You are human.
@WES: Good stuff you posted Friday and Saturday. I agree.@Mr. House, I’m 62 and I read TAE a lot more that NC these days.
Also, people who are compromised and have to put up with sexual predation are carefully selected by the sexual predators. When there is a change of situation, the prey will strike back.
What, you never had to put up with anything?
Back when I had to hitchhike an hour to work and back near Ft. Hood, Tx in the summer of 1977 I got a fair number of rides from “gay” GIs on the make. I was 19. I put up with a lot of sweet talking, and moved fondling hands away, to get to work. Nothing overtly criminal happened, and it never came to a fight.
I was relieved to get fired for smoking a joint and moved back to Austin, to a different learning opportunity, then college again in the fall.December 14, 2020 at 12:53 am #66797Mr. HouseParticipant@johnday
So play the game just because? My point being if she didn’t like what she saw she coulda done something about it, but it would have cost her any kind of future in politics. Does that disqualify you from pointing it out later, no, but it doesn’t make you seem like some sort of zenith of moral fortitude in my mind.
December 14, 2020 at 1:27 am #66798Mr. HouseParticipant“When there is a change of situation, the prey will strike back.”
I disagree, most people just want to be left alone.
“Conquered men, women, children, elderly people — they don’t spontaneously rise up and try to kill people who abuse and oppress them. Most people are not heroic. Most people are easily terrified, especially once they have already been placed in subjugated position. And if they are heroic, they usually die heroic deaths, alone. It continues to happen all over the world. Right now, somewhere, someone is being beaten and horribly abused and even if given the opportunity to strike back at the person doing the abuse, they won’t take it.
In Roman Britain, the tribes didn’t stage a successful coup against the occupying forces even when given ample opportunity and more than enough reason to unite. On three separate occasions, the governor of Britain broke off from the empire. Even in a state of Roman civil war, the tribes were unable to eject the Romans. The one very notable case of rebellion was during Suetonius Paulinus’ campaign in what is now Wales. The leader of the Iceni, Boudica, was beaten and her daughters were raped because Boudica challenged the transition of her late husband’s authority to the Roman governor (Paulinus). Only with Londinium essentially vacated of military forces did the Iceni and Trinovantes dare to attack. They were successful in causing a huge amount of civilian damage, but in the end, Paulinus’ troops rolled over the Iceni and routed them. The nearby Brigantes provided essentially no help to the Iceni and at least one source suggests Boudica may have even been poisoned by the Brigantes’ queen. Someone mentioned Nero earlier; it’s worth noting that all of this happened under Nero’s rule and Rome still easily held Britain despite Nero’s general lack of… being good as an emperor.
This pattern can be found a lot in history. It’s rare for spontaneous uprisings to happen against conquerors. Or rather, it’s more appropriate to say that it is extremely common for abusive occupation to go effectively uncontested for years, decades, or even centuries.”December 14, 2020 at 1:27 am #66799John DayParticipantGotta eat and pay rent before you can take a stand.
Again, sexual and other predators are smart. Predators watch the prey and move in when they hold all the advantages.
Predators are smart, cunning, conniving and know how to do this. It’s a series of sequenced preparations and attack. Epstein had it to a complete science, a Mossad honey-trap-Disneyland operation.
Jeffrey is hiding out somewhere, and an unlucky guy who looked kinda’ like him got snuffed.
https://www.johndayblog.com/2019/08/epsteins-dead-ringer.html
https://www.johndayblog.com/2019/08/whose-murdered-corpse.htmlDecember 14, 2020 at 1:34 am #66800Mr. HouseParticipantDecember 14, 2020 at 1:37 am #66801Mr. HouseParticipant“Gotta eat and pay rent before you can take a stand.”
She looks like an intelligent women, plenty of other jobs she could have had. You’re missing my point, which when it comes to people like that can be reduced to “shit or get off the pot”. I think we’re coming to a tipping point with that phrase with regards to both the left and the right. Shut up or do something. Power concedes nothing without a demand.
December 14, 2020 at 2:05 am #66802zerosumParticipantI feel like I’m a bystander listening to a debates of the educated elites.
The most important phrase that I’ve hear, for the past 3 weeks. ” Have you had a bowel movement today?”
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Biden’s helpersLook, read and bookmark this elitist discussion.
https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/whitepaper/bii-macro-perspectives-august-2019.pdfBlackRock Investment Institute
MACRO AND MARKET PERSPECTIVES
AUGUST 2019Dealing with the next downturn:
From unconventional monetary policy to
unprecedented policy coordination
Authors
Elga Bartsch – Head of Macro Research, BlackRock Investment Institute
Jean Boivin – Head, BlackRock Investment Institute
Stanley Fischer – Senior Advisor, BlackRock Investment Institute
Philipp Hildebrand – Vice Chairman, BlackRock
Key contributor
Simon Wan – Senior Economist, BlackRock Investment InstituteFOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION IN THE U.S., CANADA, HONG KONG, SINGAPORE AND AUSTRALIA.
FOR INSTITUTIONAL, PROFESSIONAL, WHOLESALE, QUALIFIED INVESTORS AND QUALIFIED CLIENTS IN OTHER PERMITTED COUNTRIESDecember 14, 2020 at 3:17 am #66803WESParticipantPhoenixvoice:
In 1983, I spent 6 months working in a Siberian coal mine.
I was an experienced world travel by then.
The most glaring thing that hit me, was the complete lack of hope I saw all around me.
This was because no one could improve their lot in life. One could not even change your job or where you lived!
As a result everyone in Russia drank heavily to try and escape their reality, if only for a while.
I concluded, communism was the worst governing system available to mankind. Communism is now outlawed in Russia! They should know!
Dictatorships, were better but often not very much better.
To be honest, as bad and corrupt as the US and Canada are, most of the rest of the world is worse!
December 14, 2020 at 3:55 am #66804WESParticipantDr. D.:
I laughed when you mentioned Soviet centrally planned … economy!
When I was working in Siberia in 1983, one day I insisted to my Russian interpreter that I wanted to visit the town’s only non-food store. Yes, they had a food store with empty shelves but that is another story!
Reluctantly she took me!
Once inside the store, more like a dark empty warehouse with one clerk behind a long counter, I struggled mightly to find something to buy! There was virtually nothing I wanted!
I had to forced myself to buy something! You know just for the experience!
I bought a Russian made thermos!
On the way home, the thermos separated into 3 pieces! Once home I reassembled the thermos and poured water into it to see how it worked!
Sadly the stopper didn’t keep the water in, if the thermos was laid on it’s side! The drinking cup didn’t screw on top properly. The bottom half didn’t screw into the main body properly either!
In short nothing about the thermos worked! No wonder the Russians had all left it at the store for a greater fool, like me, to buy!
P.S. Before, while in Moscow, I had visited G.U.M. the world’s biggest empty department store! I bought a pair of D sized batteries! That is a separate story in itself!
P.S. There is no toliet paper in Siberia!
December 14, 2020 at 5:37 am #66805HuskynutParticipantI grew up with the adage – “we don’t know if socialism works – it’s never been tried”. Literally true, but also a fig leaf for the intellectual failure of the ideology. It’s not generally said, but the same is also true about capitalism (it generally gets the more positive version – “its the least worst system”.
But nowhere in the history or the future of the world do we get to observe these systems free of human greed, power, coercion. Government and financial systems are like electron pairs – not only are they interdependent, one doesn’t exist without the other. So all talk of the theoretical merits and advantages of one vs the other is just farting in the breeze.
Personally I think Piketty (and his rich vein of intellectual predecessors) was spot on the money in saying that unchecked capital tends to monopoly. I’d go farther and say it’s self-evident. And where a modicum of competition persists, it becomes oligarchy instead. Which is precisely what the incentives would predict.
However – capitalism unleashes human creativity in ways socialism can only dream of. That speaks to human motivation, and some humans are born with an outrageous amount of individual drive. Capitalism harnesses that drive, whereas socialism homogenises it away, diluting it towards the norm for the sake of conformity and “equality”.
I’ve not been able to shake the brilliance of the insight since I first heard it (hat tip Caitlin Johnstone, though she may have plagiarised it) that the system of choice where you need more of something is capitalism. It delivers in spades. And the system of choice where you need to optimise something (as opposed to incentivising growth) is socialism. Which is why socialised medicine over almost the entire planet is vastly more efficient than US capitalised medicine (which in it’s constant focus on growth might better be characterised as a cancer in its own right).
One of the most toxic changes of the last couple of decades has been the expansion of the Intellectual Property (IP) industry. To be clear – fuck IP. As originally conceived – to protect innovative investment for a moderate period to incentivise R & D – excellent. As weaponised by the metastacised legal industry in the US – utter and complete insanity. Write a book, film or song and enjoy windfall profits for 70 years +? Utter, utter, utter madness, at a cost of stifling human growth and ingenuity.
Unconstrained Capital – through power – weaponises the political and legal system to it’s advantage. That’s perhaps a third of all history, paraphrased.
December 14, 2020 at 11:36 pm #66847Bill7Participant> Personally I think Piketty (and his rich vein of intellectual predecessors) was spot on the money in saying that unchecked capital tends to monopoly. I’d go farther and say it’s self-evident. And where a modicum of competition persists, it becomes oligarchy instead. Which is precisely what the incentives would predict..
Thanks for this, HN. AFAICS capital *easily and inevitably* buys the political process- that’s where we are now, IMO- with the consequent elevation of figures like Gates, Bezos, Schwartzman as apolitical (heh!) Smart Guys
who will Save Us.. no thank you, please. Bertam Gross’s book ‘Friendly Fascism’ ca. 1980 is worth a read,
or reread, except it’s not so “friendly” now- as Gross predicted. -
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