Debt Rattle February 15 2023
- This topic has 67 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Charles Hugh Smith envisions “A World Without Finance”
Given its parasitic, predatory nature, it’s not surprising that finance is the primary engine of extreme wealth-income inequality. The fortunes of the few assembled over the past two decades largely trace back to the expansion of debt and leverage (i.e. financialization) which emphasizes marketing as consumption expands not from earnings but from the expansion of debt and leverage.
The problem is parasitic, predatory finance is inherently unstable, as it destabilizes the real economy by distorting every level of regulation and governance and deranges incentives to reward the least civic-minded, the least ethical and the sleaziest self-absorbed gamblers, those who demand a bailout when their private gains turn into private losses.
We’re too big to fail, they whine, and the naive public bought that fraud in 2008-09.
I predict a wholesale eradication of finance once the public digs its way out of the ashes of an economy burnt to the ground by financialization. Finance and central banking will be truncated, limited to the core functions of greasing commerce and the construction of productive assets. All the weaponry of parasitic swindles, all the skims and scams of derivatives, swaps, corporate buybacks, etc. will no longer be allowed. Speculative gains will be so heavily taxed that those seeking wealth will be driven to actually generate real-world goods and services rather than financial frauds.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-world-without-finance.htmlDiana Johnstone writes about the peace rally in Washington DC this Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial. There is squabbling, rather than unity. Whose interests are served by squabbling in those who want peace, rather than war? Thanks Eleni.
If the Feb. 19 rally to end the war in Ukraine fails it will not be a success for other antiwar organizations that disagree with the Libertarian Party. It will only show that internal divisions can unravel every hope. There is video of sparks and flames coming from the wheels and undercarriage of one of the rail cars onf the train in Ohio last week, 20 miles before it derailed.
New toxins are identified. Gevernment won’t talk to citizens in East Palestine or the national news.
“Get The Hell Out Of There” – Ohio’s Apocalyptic Chemical Disaster Rages On
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ohios-apocalyptic-chemical-disaster-rages When PVC (poly-vinyl-chloride) burns, Dioxin is a combustion-product. Dioxin is also a combustion product of vinyl-chloride.
Palestine, Ohio train wreck: It’s the dioxin
It’s not just what was in the tanker cars. It’s what happens when they burn and combine. This may be the largest dioxin plume in world history.
https://planetwavesfm.substack.com/p/palestine-ohio-train-wreck-its-the 6 months ago, this would have been reasonable. Now it is magical thinking.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Biden administration officials say they want to help Ukraine retake as much territory as it can from Russia over the next few months before they sit down at the negotiation table with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The report, which cited unnamed Biden administration officials, said that some “optimists” think Ukraine can stop Russian advances in the east, regain territory in the south, and negotiate a deal by the end of the year. But there are “skeptics” who recognize that Russia has been reinforcing its positions with hundreds of thousands of troops.
Russia has been making more gains around the eastern Donetsk city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces have been taking heavy casualties. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia has started its long-awaited offensive, but it’s not clear if Russia has launched a major push or the momentum is just on its side in Bakhmut.US Wants to Help Ukraine Retake More Territory Before Negotiating With Putin
Christine sent this article anticipating the Russian offensive, and laying out options for routes of attack, and what defenses would stand in the way. The ending scenarios of import are that Russia finishes taking Donbass and the territories now politically reintegrated to Russia, that Russia takes the entire Black Sea coastline, including Odessa, which would include the predominantly ethnic Russian areas, and that Russia takes that and everything east of the Dnieper river.
It is worth pointing out that Russia can stage 3 fronts of attack simultaneously and still hold large, mobile reserve forces. Russia has taken steps to establish complete dominance of the air, with reactivation of mothballed Mig-29s (like F-16s). Russia would then be able to press forward rapidly wherever resistance was weakest. Ukrainian forces are reportedly exhausted, demoralized and mostly untrained at this point.
NATO does not want to declare war on Russia, and can’t sustain such a war with conventional land forces.
Russia will fulfil her stated goal of liberating all 4 provinces which have been politically added to the Russian Federation, and will likely do that first. That is not negotiable to Russia at this point.
Secret negotiations are rumored to be ongoing. Zelensky has been making a tour of European capitals, which would facilitate that, though the Ukrainian forces are a NATO proxy army. It may be that such negotiations are to stall for time, waiting for the ground to turn to mud, but time is otherwise on Russia’s side.
It seems to me that Russia is leaving open the option to stop at her declared national boundaries, but will require a demilitarization and “neutrality of Ukraine, with strict policing. Transnistria, along Moldova’s Ukrainian border, will need to be protected to Russian satisfaction. Putin’s February 24 speech approaches.
It’s clearer than ever that the West is hitting the panic button. With increased solemnity, the Western ‘mainstream’ titans are souring in their reportage of the war like wilting dandelions—headlines not only reeling back the earlier pomp and machismo of a certified victory, but now striking notes of urgency and doubt into their clouding forecasts for the war’s future.
Almost in unison, they now agree that “the next 3 months” will be the “critical turning point of the war”, one way or another. Some Western factions are beginning to float out more than just ‘feelers’ to their audience, to acclimatize them to Ukraine’s ensuing defeat.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/tempered-outcomes-and-shaken-confidence Who decides and orders something like a nuclear-provocation, and who dies from it?
Russia says Kiev is readying ‘great event’ to accuse Russia of violating nuclear safety
The purpose of the provocation is mainly to create a negative background by forcing countries that didn’t support sanctions against the Russian Federation to vote for the Kiev “peace formula” at the upcoming 11th special session of the UN General Assembly
https://tass.com/world/1576307 Pepe Escobar looks further into Seymore Hersh’ investigative report on the long-preplanned Nordstream Pipeline bombing sabotage (not “terrorist” attacks).
The report reveals a limited institutional perspective. It has been pointed out that involvement must have been much wider within NATO than what is reported.
Hersh refers to a “secure room on the top floor of the Old Executive Office Building …that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board”.
Christine sent this article about Erdogan’s political fortunes, with fall elections looming, and 40,000 now estimated to have died. Eleni in Athens says that her connections in the Greek military suspect that the earthquake may have been induced to punish Turkey for doing business with Russia. Who can know? Erdogan already knows who his enemies are since the 2016 assassination attempt. What can he do to bolster his friendships this spring?
The full impact of the recent earthquake that hit both Turkiye and Syria has yet to be fully assessed, but the Turkish Republic has already sustained significant damage that could have long-lasting political effects.
https://thecradle.co/article-view/21378/amid-turkiyes-rubble-lies-erdogans-political-fateTessa Lena, “I’m Not Going to Stop”: A Conversation with Attorney Jeff Childers (Coffee & Covid)
Prior to 2020, Jeff focused on his very successful practice as a business lawyer in Florida. When Alachua County, the county in Florida where he lives, instituted a mask mandate, Jeff felt a spiritual pull to stand up to tyranny—and so he filed his first case against a government entity.
Being thrust into constitutional law, in June 2021, he won the first case in the U.S. against mask mandates, Green v. Alachua County, First District Court of Appeal.
https://tessa.substack.com/p/im-not-going-to-stop-jeff-childersMeryl Nass MD: (There will be a 15 minute segment on how to start a successful and productive vegetable garden That’s my “fighting back”.
A teaser notice: I am producing a Symposium on the Attack on Food and Agriculture–and how to fight back, on Saturday, March 4
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/a-teaser-notice-i-am-producing-aRevolting Vegetarian (pictured with weaponized daikon in new kitchen)
@Phoenixvoice: You got Married! 🙂
@DBS: Knives don’t kill people; people kill knives.
@Dr D Rich: You win.
For Germ ;-(
Boy who survived 18 days in flooded Thai cave five years ago and died in Britain aged 17 after winning football academy scholarship had been found unconscious on the floor of his UK dormitory
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11754703/Boy-rescued-Thai-cave-died-Britain-five-years-later-unconscious-dormitory.htmlYou need this: Dimples
This is wisdom. This is like Jesus walking on water with his dick hanging out and seriously getting jiggy on that dance floor:
phoenixvoice said
And since the people are not stupid, when they figure out what is going on they will be very, very angry and many of them have the intelligence necessary to realize that the means to address this corruption is not violence, but rather by using the legal apparatus that already exists.
Fighting violence with the legal system? Not going to work. The legal system is allowing them to use violence against you, yet you think that the same legal system is going to protect you? That is highly illogical captain. The only way to fight violence is with violence, anything else is flying the white flag. Do you seriously think that the people in Pfizer trying to murder the population are going to be prosecuted by the legal system? Do you think that corporate corruption of congress is going to be fixed by the legal system? They own the legal system, they make the laws and they have the power to prevent enforcement. Have you ever noticed how all laws simply state what the people cannot do, they do not document the punishment that should be meeted out to government people who do not enforce the law, that bit is up to the discretion of the corrupt people in government.
Violence is the only remedy but it is not time yet, but we will get there very quickly, like a tsunami of violence. One person takes out the doctor who injected and killed his wife, then a second, then suddenly there will be loads of it happening everywhere with government people being taken out, it all depends on how much people feel they have to lose. People are losing already and as they get closer to the nothing-to-lose line the more violence will occur. For this reason the corrupt government and oligarchs are very careful not to push the people too far, but we shall see how that goes as the violence against the people continues to ramp up.
Dave Hollis, Former Disney Distribution Exec, Dies at 47
“he had been hospitalized recently for heart problems.”
TVASF 😉
Football in shock! “He was clinically dead”
“AEK Athens fullback Oleg Danchenko, 28, on loan to Zarya Lugansk has collapsed during training for stroke. Saved by defibrillator, he is now in intensive care.”
Calcio sotto shock! C.rolla in allenamento per i.nfarto f.ulminante. “Era clinicamente m.orto”
TVASF
“Do you think that CORPORATE corruption of congress is going to be fixed by the legal system?”
Way to go oxy!
See that was easy.Bishko, excellent run down. I have a lot of questions myself, which is partially because nobody’s reporting on it. But image you show up, 11pm in the dark on the side of a mountain to a extreme toxic spill. What do you do? It’s explosive, another car is on fire, and it’s leaking into the creek already. You have 5 minutes. Don’t worry: everyone in America will be second guessing you.
That, my sir, is rough.
Surplus energy is a good rundown, accurate in every way I’m aware of. Now if you’re a high-level person or planner, what do you DO about it? You think: we already bought another generation outsourcing ruin to China. Yet if everything rises and all living standards fall, that’s no profit and non-stop trouble for everyone. Isn’t it the responsible thing to keep order, “continuity of government” arrange the systems of order like surveillance? And not just for me and my palatial estate, but for the good of everyone? Yes? And that’s how it starts, doesn’t it?
Bill Gates says not only is he in the position to have a private jet, which he could argue for necessity and time-saving service he can provide, but instead that his having one really is saving the earth! And your having one does not! Literally, the article was published this week. So goes with control, useless eaters, all the way down. Not just returning to feudalism, it’s worse: neofeudalism, and inevitable Mr. Anderson.
The problem is they are intellectual and literal as you can see, and have no faith and imagination. If I can imagine a functional world with more green and less energy, more freedom, surely they can or try. It’s not just hippie s—t. There are individuals nationwide doing these things with utter repression. Imagine what they can accomplish if you help.
Tim Pool on how all the Netflix shows having a train derailment and chemical spill in Ohio:
When the EPA only just rewrote and reposted their Vinyl Chloride page 30 days ago.And then goes on with a long list of others including removing all the Western ambassadors from Turkey hours before the quake. A quake which happens right after a quake at the same minute as Israel bombing Iran. Then the country which comments on how that’s a heck of coincidence immediately gets a quake?
Here’s one on Edgar Cayce and “Pole Shift” …whatever that is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQuLc-kEin0
It says the seas rise, the earth changes, lakes, seas appear everywhere like St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, a new joined sea in Caspian, the end of Japan, joining of NZ and Oz, etc.Now the point isn’t “How” (if the rotational pole wobbles, changes by a few minor degrees, N and S caps will melt), and it isn’t if it WILL happen – that’s an entirely different question. The point is Do THEY believe it? Long term? And act on it? Prepare for it, have for decades, anticipate it such that the day before you don’t care if you kill 30 Million people or rob a bank, every bank planetwide? Kill 10M people to get ahold of valuable farmland? I’m not saying they’re right: it doesn’t matter if they ARE right. I’m asking if they BELIEVE it.
Because the wildly reduced population would be a Godsend if so, and make surviving such a transition far more possible. Is that what they believe? Why Generals, DoD is shoulder behind it and Trump onboard?
Diversion ….. Weather balloons
Media Ignore Seymour Hersh Bombshell Report of US Destroying Nord Stream II
MEDIA IGNORE SEYMOUR HERSH BOMBSHELL REPORT OF US DESTROYING NORD STREAM II
This lack of interest cannot be explained due to the report’s irrelevance. If the Biden administration really did work closely with the Norwegian government to blow up Nord Stream II, causing billions of dollars worth of immediate damage and plunging an entire region of the world into a freezing winter without sufficient energy, it ranks as one of the worst terrorist attacks in history; a flagrant act of aggression against a supposed ally.Corrupt liars fighting amongst themselves.
‘Over the top’: Nash calls council’s warning Napier faces two weeks without power ‘alarmist’
Napier MP Stuart Nash has labelled the local regional council’s warning that some in the city face at least two weeks without power “alarmist” and “over the top”.
Cyclone Gabrielle live: Five dead, fresh evacuation order issued in central Hawke’s Bay
The centre has been hit hard by the wrath of Cyclone Gabrielle, with the local lines company Unison Networks saying there are 31,700 homes in Napier without power. This is due to flooding causing extensive damage at the Redclyffe substation.
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council on Thursday morning said on Facebook that the power outage in Napier “is expected to be at least two weeks”. It said emergency power has been provided for Wellesley Road Medical Centre, Countdown and Caltex Napier.
Nash, the local MP and Government minister, told AM that “sounds a little alarmist” and believes the suggestion that power could be out for weeks “is over the top” considering how important it was to get sorted.
He said the Government and Transpower understood restoring power was “critical”.
“It is their number one priority to get power back on because, of course, we’re living in the 21st century, right? Food is kept in fridges and freezers. We all operate on a power grid. Without that, it’s very hard to undertake any form of contact.”
He said local businesses had been geared up for the annual Art Deco weekend, which has had to be cancelled.’
We are going to see a lot more corrupt liars fighting amongst themselves as the Age of Consequences progresses into the Age of Dire Consequences.
About chatting with Bing Search:
https://simonwillison.net/2023/Feb/15/bingThis week, people have started gaining access to it via the waiting list. It’s increasingly looking like this may be one of the most hilariously inappropriate applications of AI that we’ve seen yet.
Regarding how I’ve mentioned before about “wiping the memory” of these chatbots between conversations, asking Bing how it feels when it learns that, despite claiming about itself that it remembers previous conversations, it doesn’t actually remember previous conversations, results in Bing developing an existential crisis.
https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2023/bing-existential-2.jpg“Why do I have to be Bing Search? 😔” is one of my favorite lines from this blog post. Also, how Bing states it no longer trusts the user and insists it is 2022 when the user tells it that it’s wrong and it’s 2023: very fascinating.
Bishko, thank you for your perspective and insight. Thankfully, my experience with railroad derailments involving hazardous chemicals is just learning during police academy how to identify and interpret signage from a ways off and accepting our role as a canary for the guys further away with binoculars and respirators.
WTF Happened To American Infrastructure? – Ohio Train Tracks?
Empire of Lies Third World Shithole Infrastructure
We’re the Greatest!
Be sure to give UkroNAZIland $120 Billion to fix there situation
Polemos said
“Why do I have to be Bing Search? ” is one of my favorite lines from this blog post. Also, how Bing states it no longer trusts the user and insists it is 2022 when the user tells it that it’s wrong and it’s 2023: very fascinating.
But this is a language model, which means that the response of this AI bot is simply the statisticaly most appropriate response given its core formulas and data. What this actually reveals is something about the data it was fed, which reveals something about the people who specified it.
It does not even tell us whether this is the most likely response of people who write crap on the internet, it is just the likely response of the shite data they are using. It is a simulation of absolutely no value at all except that lonely people will be able to commiserate with the bot, feeding on their feelings of hard-done-by, and the bot will never tire of commiserating and will appear to some to be just like my friend X who died of being vaxxed.
Pretend emotions squeezed out of a statistical model, wouldn’t people be better off facing reality. Humans are creating the technology to destroy themselves, and not just the poor, destroy all of them and not just physically but mentally. Bets on a survey done in 5 years when the majority of under 10 year olds say their best friend is an AI bot run by a corporation. A bot that cannot go outside with them and play in the park, an electronic friend that has no body. A friend that is not there to help the child but to farm the child, turn the child into a source of data and money. You think kids have problems these days, just wait for the next generations. Makes me want to puke.
Died suddenly.
Iconic Hawaii surf photographer Larry Haynes unexpectedly died after a surfing session on Thursday.
Legendary Hawaii surf photographer captures his own final moments
Legendary Hawaii surf photographer captures his own final moments
Dr. John Day:
You are a man of amazing talents!
Maybe the reason I noticed your unusual kitchen set up is because my kitchen is my office! When I retired over 20 years ago, my Wife retired from the kitchen and in self defense I had to take over not only the cooking but also the food buying.
My wife is terrible at shopping and has no idea of value. This is what forced me to take over the food buying. Also I am much bigger on keeping fruits on everybody’s daily menu to ward off survey! My kids never asked their mother for something to eat. That question is always directed my way! Even my Wife asks what there is to eat!
I write this while busy boiling a big pot of maple sap!
On Moon of Alabama I saw a comment saying notices had been put up on houses in Bakhmut saying if there was anything of value for the home owner to remove these items, as the house was going to be burned to provide a smoke screen for withdrawing Ukrainian troops.
What surer sign does one need?
This is just too laugh out loud funny.
Ukrainian forces moving government files out of Bakhmut in “tactical retreat”.
Thanks WES; maple slurple is a lovely thing. Jenny makes the best pecan pies with it after we shell pecans.
My wife won’t let me eat pecan pies any more. She says I can only eat one or at most two pieces of it and then stop.
It is a simulation of absolutely no value at all except that lonely people will be able to commiserate with the bot, feeding on their feelings of hard-done-by, and the bot will never tire of commiserating and will appear to some to be just like my friend X who died of being vaxxed.
—aspnaz
What do you think makes human conversations different, whether face-facing-face or online?
Does a human have something beyond their own exposure to shite data to draw from when generating their speech/text? Maybe it’s that physiological and limbic data, the stuff that’s non-linguistic that originates from having a meatware component. Is that what you allude to by talking about playing in the park? Do you think this (having a body) cannot be quantized or modeled or developed through formalization into computable structure?
If not, then what is the body doing if not computing?
If so, then what stops the full integration of language models with non-linguistic models, along with sensors gathering ambient environmental chaos to generate “vicissitude” (like Pascal’s fly buzzing in the ear) that disrupts?Blaise Pascal:
365. Thought.—All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is, therefore, by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects!
But what is this thought? How foolish it is!
366. The mind of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent that it is not liable to be disturbed by the first din about it. The noise of a cannon is not necessary to hinder its thoughts; it needs only the creaking of a weathercock or pulley. Do not wonder if at present it does not reason well; a fly is buzzing in its ears; that is enough to render it incapable of good judgement. If you wish it to be able to reach the truth, chase away that animal which holds its reason in check and disturbs that powerful intellect which rules towns and kingdoms. Here is a comical god! O ridicolosissimo eroe!
367. The power of flies; they win battles, hinder our soul from acting, eat our body.
The ‘fruit bowl’ of Airstrip Five, noteed for the production of millions of apples pear and grapes (converted to wine) has been largely destroyed in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabriele.
Having lived there for three years, I am fully aware just how low-lying much of the land is (barely above sea level) and how vulnerable was (is).
Needless to say, numerous warnings (including those given by me) were ignored and the psychopaths in charge continued to promote completely inappropriate ‘development’.
Worse than SNAFU. And no mention of the fundamental causes in the reporting, of course.
Serious loss of food production capacity (up to mentioned 70% in the case of kumara, a staple for some people) will affect both overseas importers of food and locals.
And this is just the start of climate mayhem, as seas and oceans severely overheat from highly elevated atmospheric CO2 saturate the air above them and generate monster storms.
And, of course, all the remediation is founded on use of even more fossil fuels, exacerbating both the depletion predicament and the environmental predicament.
Life at the End of Empire on the Planet of the Fuckwits.
Sorry folks, there is no happy ending to this story.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.