Debt Rattle October 21 2020

 

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    Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1972   • ‘Nonpublic Information’ Debunks Letter From ’50 Former Intel Officials’ (ZH) • Rudy Giuliani Files Police Re
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 21 2020]

    #64651
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “CASES!!!”

    Deaths: CDC. 50. That’s 10 per state. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendsdeaths

    10 WHOLE PEOPLES? Oh Noes. 10 ÷ 330M = 0.00015%

    What does NY say? “New York has shown that even if you’re extremely old, that is, over 75, unless you have one or more of the comorbid “nasty” conditions the odds of you being killed by Covid are nearly zero. A literal four people over 75 without any of those conditions in New York have died.” https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/master/deaths/deaths-by-underlying-conditions.csv

    NY has 16 MILLION people. 4 ÷ 16,000,000 = 0.000025% Shark territory.

    We have cases of aches and pains, of slight headaches, of PMS, but like Covid we don’t care because those don’t kill you either. The death rate is barely off the bottom. Wisconsin spikes!!! Yeah, that was like 10 additional deaths. I think they can handle it. A single hospital ward could handle it.

    But why stop when we can ‘round up the Jewwwwws? Amitrite? There’s still a few black businesses that haven’t handed their life savings to Jeff Bezos. Can’t stop now.

    https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/Rampant-shoplifting-leads-to-another-Walgreens-15654730.php

    Lack of law and order + accused racism = businesses in poor and brown neighborhoods close and leave food, drug, and banking deserts. …That they later blame on racism, and keep that wheel of killin’ black folks going. Like Chicago! #1 besides Baltimore. Anyway, close marginal neighborhood stores, move their business online to Bezos, who like FB, Twitter, give like-kind election donations to the party that destroys the people and mails their gold teeth to billionaires.

    “How did Germany let that happen?” Like this, you dopes. With a library of books they don’t bother to research and read. National Democratic S O C I A L I S T S used weirdo race and race theory to destroy the people and unite power of the insider state and palatial billionaires, erasing all resistance. Their Brown shirts attacked common folks like black protestors and gay Asians in the streets in DEFENSE OF BILLIONAIRES like Bosch and Thyssen. They made billions and were later protected by Grandpa Bush and the “Businessman Coup” crowd when picking bombing targets. I don’t understand how mass white people, beating, smashing, and shuttering black businesses and neighborhoods doesn’t cause more alarm. Doesn’t ring a bell with someone, somewhere.

    “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”

    Oh and if the Patriot Act weren’t enough (enthusiastically re-affirmed by both parties) the same Left is now calling for an end to the Constitution altogether. Yeah, we know, we saw that coming 30 years back. Who needs that pesky Bill of (Human) Rights? It’s so supportive of minorities and the disenfranchised to no longer have any written legal protection at all. I’m sure it’ll all work out.

    So let’s see: Beating opponents? Check. While in uniform of their organization? Check. Legally protected when committing open felonies? Check. Burning books? Check. United with billionaires? Check. Oppressing and destroying minorities and minority businesses? Check. Censorship? Check. Want to outlaw guns and public discussion? Check. Ability to speak determined by race? Check. Promise to end human rights and create a state based on race? Check. Want that state to be all-powerful, controlling all aspects of human life? Check. Violent warmongers overseas? Check. High-level personalities calling opponents “Maggots” who “need to be removed from society”? Check. Said uniformed people say they will shoot their own moderates against the wall? Check. Say they’re on the side of pure love for their people? Check.

    Don’t know what you need, people. Maybe to read a book.

    So who would be the opposite of such group? A group that opposed censorship and book burning, supported due process and human rights, that didn’t define people according to an #antiScience, unscientific belief in “race”, that wanted the state to stay in a corner and not be all-powerful, that allowed and protected people’s property and didn’t run or interfere in the economy, that wanted to withdraw troops back home, that wanted to charge anti-trust laws to billionaires and cut off government contracts, and was in support of gun rights to counterbalance the violence of the state. Now who would that be? Can’t figure it out.

    Cornell failed to disclose $1.2 BILLION. [in gifts and donations]”

    I’m sure Russia, with the GDP of Italy, is super on-top of that gift/bribe/payoff list. Uh huh.
    Newbie
    https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/heraldextra.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/e6/5e658815-3f35-505a-a5e0-104d2db1bdf8/5c1804803db48.image.jpg

    “No, Our Democracy and Freedom Are Not On The Line This Election (Rasmussen)”

    Meh. They kind of are. Always. But point taken. The world didn’t just magically all change 3 years ago. It’s been since Wilson or even Lincoln to get this level of overreach and corruption.…and you don’t just get to walk away from that. We’re paying for it now and we’re not done yet. Paying for not following the Constitution, the LAW, that our fathers set up and we agreed to.

    Rassmusen posted this yesterday, Oct 19, so he also knows his argument here is a lie, and he knows all about the “10 Tea Leaves” better than we do. Articles from Pollsters yesterday: “We’re not at all sure. Anyone who thinks we do is wrong, we’re super-duper unsure!” Uh-huh. According to you with Biden up by 12 and a 90% chance of winning by the same pollsters. That sounds pretty certain to me. You’re just lying, CYA, and talking out both sides of your little weasel snout.

    Why not? It’s impossible to be discredited. For that a nation needs to have shame.

    “Senate Panel Delays Vote to Subpoena Twitter, Facebook CEOs (Pol.)”

    As 100% expected. Twitter, Google and the oligarchs ARE the U.S. government, as per 1935, so why would the uni-state subpoena the uni-state? “Should I investigate myself? I consulted with myself and after long deliberation decided I was innocent and should not investigate myself. Wikipedia agrees!”

    Cut off the government. You the people, are the only viable counterweight, although the States might help.

    “Facebook is almost an arm of the Democratic Party — an arm of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party.”

    Yes, but keep your wits. They are ALLOWED to be. Papers, including the NY Post possibly from the 1st article (Hamilton was a famous partisan) are biased and partisan. The only difference is that they have government-sanctioned monopoly status and special legal carve out. That special carve-out is the only thing that prohibits Facebook from such censorship. So if they are a publisher, fine. Then you can sue them for Libel. If not, they are a platform and can’t censor. The End.

    So much for ‘we are not the arbiters of truth.’

    Yes, but newsflash: even the NY Times is not the arbiter of truth. Even if they weren’t lying every day, every story, the POINT of free speech is to get “reports”, and then over time identify who is credible and what is happening. The NY Times may even mean well and mis-report UN OPCW, Novachok, Presidential taxes, RussiaRussia, WMD and ties to al-Qaeda, Osama-lives-in-Baathist-Iraq, incubator babies, Vietnam, baby-eating Huns, and the USS Maine. …Doesn’t seem very likely though does it? Each paper, person tries to present the truth as they see it and over time we come to know what the truth actually was. Even a war reporter watching bullets fly doesn’t really know the total picture.

    How much less so Facebook, before each side has presented their case? Apparently they know in 60 seconds, without asking. They are God! Or Zuck and Dorsey are part of a weirdo cult that THINKS they are gods. Of light. The Morning Star. If they weren’t, they would think they are men, and failable.

    I don’t know; you don’t know: that’s why we’re talking; to figure it out. In the “open marketplace of ideas.” You know: the Enlightenment. Where “All men are created equal” and “Endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights” just as speech, having opinions, and self-defense. Dorsey is not God. Zuck isn’t even human: he’s an android. Watch his testimony, it’s hilarious as well as famous.

    “I’m quite pessimistic in the days ahead” – on the likelihood of a spike in coronavirus infections”

    A spike that kills nobody and does nothing. Since July. Oh noes. Whole world has to change now! We MUST end Human Rights! And remember, FL governor says Covid will only end if Biden is elected. The ‘Rona knows!!!

    convert individual human greed into collective virtue.”

    Greed is never a virtue, by definition. However, people wanting to work for stuff don’t have their work, the hours of their life stolen, and can trade with others who also do work. It could even be voluntary and not include government and market mass-murder and violence!

    At the same time –STOPPING—humans from working and trading — that is, any other form besides “capitalism” — REQUIRES violence. Massive, violent, ceaseless violence. That also totally fails and breeds its own sub-violence. It’s called the “Black Market” and no human society on earth has ever conquered it.

    Isn’t it too tragic that people want to work and improve themselves and you can’t stop them? Almost can’t sleep nights knowing someone, somewhere, is being productive and sharing.

    #64652
    John Day
    Participant

    Looks like Picasso dropped some bad acid in 1972…

    #64653
    Basseterre Kitona
    Participant

    They don’t appear to know why.

    • Studies Point To Big Drop In COVID-19 Death Rates (NPR)

    Hmmm…seems to me now that the virus has spread everywhere and nearly everyone has likely been exposed to it, that by now the people most susceptible to death by corona virus have already died and thus deaths are dropping.

    Kind of like how a storm knocks out all the weak branches and makes a big mess. Yet another storm a week later barely leaves a mark.

    Also, yeah, doctors have improved their treatment results too.

    #64654
    zerosum
    Participant

    Yesterday, I went hunting. I called. 5 does came out of the bush.
    The buck would not come out of the bush. Went home empty handed.
    ——–
    No foreign students means no foreign revenues then this report comes out.
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/investigation-prompts-schools-to-report-6-5-billion-in-undisclosed-foreign-gifts-and-contracts_3545741.html

    Education Secretary Betsy DeVos unveiled the findings of the investigation at an event on Oct. 20, alongside officials from the Justice Department and the State Department.

    “Accordingly, for decades, foreign state and non-state actors have devoted significant resources to influence or control teaching and research, to the theft of intellectual property or even espionage, and to the use of American campuses as centers for propaganda operations and other projections of soft power.”
    For the first half of 2020 alone, U.S. universities retroactively reported $2 billion in foreign gifts and contracts. One school, which isn’t identified in the report, failed to report $760 million in foreign funding. University officials told the DOE they were “dumbfounded” by the reporting error. Another unnamed school failed to report $1.2 billion in foreign gifts and contracts.

    The educated elites can write beautiful, motivated articles that can direct the changes of our social structures and yet, continuously make “reporting errors” that benefit their revenues.

    Who should go to an elite university?
    Hint
    Looks like Picasso dropped some bad acid in 1972
    ———-

    #64655
    zerosum
    Participant

    Does C19 prefer food bank line ups or voting lineups?

    #64656
    zerosum
    Participant

    Improve the GDP/economy/travel industry by
    1. giving me a $2,000 travel voucher and
    2. make the $C on par with the $U.
    3. Sell Canadian oil and products to USA priced with on par dollars

    #64657

    Looks like Picasso dropped some bad acid in 1972…

    At age 81, I’m not sure. He had devoted a lot of his time to “crossing the barrier” between 2D and 3D. He probably was never satisfied. But he was one of the most prolific painters ever, he kept at it. And he never just did something, it’s not like any kid could have done it.

    As the first self-portrait in this series (Debt Rattle Oct. 16) shows, he was already a very good painter at age 15. That included his mastery of color, not a given for any painter. Rembrandt was an early master at that. And when you’re that good so young, what do you do, repeat the same thing over and over for the rest of your life? Pablo did not. And he died fighting 2D.

    #64658
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Here’s a little something for you pandemic-deniers: Staff at overwhelmed Wisconsin hospital urge people to take coronavirus seriously

    Your denial of the seriousness of this crisis while hospitals in my home state are being overwhelmed really reminds of high-school kids who think they have the world all figured out because they just read Atlas Shrugged.

    #64659
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    This Picasso painting reads like a graphic translation of aging. We are the sum of our parts. On our way out we see it was only an abstract creation of our own mind?

    Oh yeah, all right
    Are you going to be in my dreams
    Tonight?
    And in the end
    the LOVE you take is equal to the LOVE you make.

    #64660
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    I think we need the whole Beatles song today.

    The End – written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

    Verse 1]
    Oh yeah, alright
    Are you going to be in my dreams
    Tonight?

    [Drum and Guitar Solos]

    [Instrumental break 0:20-1:32]
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love you, love you
    Love

    [Verse 2]
    And in the end
    The love you take
    Is equal to the love you make

    #64661
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/10/power-transition.html
    I think that the overlord class is now forced into some fevered negotiations regarding the transfer of power in the US. They should really be negotiating now, because it has been effective gridlock for almost 4 years, and it was not working right even before that.
    No group currently has decisive power in the US, so the US cannot act decisively, as it degrades further and further. There has been a deep state holding action, aligned with most Democrats and the Bush/Romney Republicans, denying executive power to the elected weirdo-in-chief. Trump has had the bully pulpit and has used it dramatically.
    Trump has shown himself to be an adequately weird match for these weird times.

    A lot of people have not accepted the inevitability of weird times yet. The elites know, though.
    Current flows of wealth into the US are from outside. The US produces expensive weapons, food, upper-tier electronics production machinery, airplanes and oil and gas. Manufacturing of commodities is offshored, except mattresses, refrigerators and washing machines, which are big, bulky and expensive to ship overseas.

    Wealth comes to North America for dollars, the global reserve currency. A digital central bank currency is being openly developed, and central banks across the world have secured national gold, both some at home, and some in financial centers, for practical reasons in a reset. The rest of the world is tired of having wealth extracted by the reserve currency. The Saudis got “protection” for the deal to only sell oil in $US. They still get that. Is that enough to support a reserve currency these days?
    The US military supports the dollar by destroying countries that sell their oil in other currencies, like Iraq and Libya. The US military is just a bit behind in destroying Iran and Venezuela. It sure is making life hard in those countries, but they are not yet destroyed. Iran seems fairly indestructible lately.
    https://iranian.com/2020/10/18/there-wont-be-an-iran-october-surprise/

    Poppy Bush is dead, and the CIA was his team. He reorganized it after the Church hearings, did the secret deal with Iran (in Paris) to assure that Iran would not send the hostages home to President Carter, who was concurrently secretly negotiating with Iran. Bush got into the White House with Reagan, and ran the Iran Contra drugs for arms for military parts to Iran for hostages deal. Bill Clinton provided the landing site in Arkansas for the CIA planes full of coke. Bill became a team-player.
    There is a lack of deep state executive power right now. Cheney is still important, but he has an external cardiac assist pump, and he is not a family member like Poppy was, just a retainer.
    Dubya and Jeb are not up to the job, are they?

    The empire needs to negotiate a step-down to a multipolar world.
    China, Russia and Iran are waiting patiently as the strategic situation shifts ever more in their favor. Israel will have to deal with Russia and China, and give up on totally destroying Iran.
    Asia still needs the US as a counterbalance to China. Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, India and Indonesia all benefit from the limits the US places on Chinese power. Paying some tribute to the US to keep from paying a ot more to China is a good investment for them.
    There is a good case for a multipolar world, where the great powers are in dynamic balance, and great wars are avoided. The US needs an executive to function in that dynamic, and it has no executive, just a Mexican standoff, where numerous parties have their fingers on triggers to kill other parties, so gridlock.

    Hunter Biden’s laptop has kiddie porn, they say. It has kiddie porn starring Hunter Biden on drugs, they say. The FBI’s top kiddie-porn investigator signed for Hunter’s laptop. That’s confirmed.
    “In an interview this evening with Newsmax TV, former NYC Mayor and current attorney to President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani announces he has turned over Hunter Biden’s laptop hard-drive to Delaware State Police due to pictures of underage girls and inappropriate text messages.”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rudy-giuliani-turns-over-alleged-photos-underage-girls-hunters-hard-drive-delaware-police

    Tomorrow is the last presidential debate, and Donald Trump can either feed Joe Biden into the wood-chipper, or hold him there head first, gazing into it.
    Joe is not a player in this game. Joe is a piece being played. Joe is unelectable. He’s off the board.
    Donald is a player in US electoral politics, set to win the presidency again, and he’s the only clear player to be empowered to play for the empire, on the world stage, at this point.
    Trump’s role will be to negotiate the multipolar world order.
    Nationalism and specific alliances of interests have outmaneuvered the “New World Order” that Poppy Bush spoke so glowingly of. We just can’t afford to be consumed by that big, sloppy blob.

    For the moment, Giuliani is playing all the chips from Hunter Biden’s laptop with relish. Murdoch is publishing the sleaze and dirt, so the media stonewall is broken.
    Facebook and Twitter are still ruled by one man each, who can make decisions, negotiate, and command critical changes, which will be duly carried out.
    Google is being sued, and the direction the wind is blowing is to remove the power concentrated in big tech founders. Who gets it next?

    People Need to Reclaim the Internet

    Other than Giuliani, who is advancing as a knight, and Murdoch, protecting his moves, Nancy Pelosi is a player, capable of negotiations, who we can watch. If Nancy is not attacking, she is negotiating terms of surrender, for at least some parties, like the Clintons and Podestas. Obama is playing, but he’s invisible. He may be in charge of the comeback of the Democratic Party, or at least a defensive line of damage control. Representing Poppy Bush’s Deep State interests, I nominate Bill Barr as the piece to keep your eyes on. He got on with Poppy when he was still in high school and rose all the way through the CIA’s ranks as it became whatever it is today. He knows who is who, and where the bodies are buried. If he brings indictments out against mid to upper mid-level deep state players, after the debate, but before the election, that will be writing on the wall for the deep state, that a change of command is taking place, and they should fall in line appropriately.

    This is moving fast. If I am wrong we will know within 2 weeks. If I am right, it will unfold on this timeline, which is the timeline of the elections. If I am right, then the US may start rebuilding before the collapse is at it’s depths. That would be a lot better, nd we could avoid civil war.

    #64662
    Bill7
    Participant

    Odd that the coroni deathNdestruction™ is always- but always!- somewhere else. But yeah, we should *definitely* give up our civil liberties to fight it; after all The Authorities will give ’em back just as soon
    as possible (heh!).

    I haven’t had the dreaded coroni; no one I know, has; no one I know, knows *anyone whatever* who has had it
    here on the central coast of California.

    -Bill7

    #64663
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “I haven’t had the dreaded coroni”

    I’m still rather sure i had it at the beginning of feb this year. My dad who is mid 60’s thinks he had in at the beginning of Jan. Once again, i want to know, when was the virus first here? Its a much bigger deal then most think, because if it was here last fall, we didn’t notice.

    #64664
    Mr. House
    Participant

    As mark twain said ” their are lies, damned lies, and statistics”

    Seeing how 50% of the country got swept up in Russiagate, which if people actually followed politics year in and year out, instead of 2.5 months around an election, they’d know the a classic Clinton tactic is to accuse your enemy of what you yourself has been doing. Which with each new factoid that emerged from russiagate seemed to prove. Most of the evidence we saw stated the clintons were in bed with the russians, but 50% of the country was using reason. Is that same percentage once again not using reason with regards to the virus? Seems like it to me.

    #64665
    John Day
    Participant

    There are a lot of eyes in that Picasso self portrait, and a tongue that looks like it won’t work.
    I’m not saying Pablo made a mistake anywhere, including dropping acid. It’s like everybody knew the Beatles had dropped acid when they came out with Revolver.

    #64666
    John Day
    Participant

    This looks important going forward, and consider the author:

    The Two Undersides to Geo-Politics


    Mark Warner, Democratic Vice-Chair of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, sees the threat from China in stark terms: Beijing intends to control the next generation of digital infrastructure, he says, and, as it does so, to impose principles ‘that are antithetical to U.S. values’. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, [the U.S.] leadership role has eroded and our leverage to establish standards and protocols reflecting our values has diminished,” Warner laments: “As a result others, but mostly China, have stepped into the void to advance standards and values that advantage the Chinese Communist party”.

    All signs point to China wielding more influence over global technological standards. Yet equally certain is that the backlash from Washington is building. Should the U.S. become more confrontational, it could lead China to accelerate a move towards parallel alternatives. This could ultimately result in a bifurcated arena on industrial standards.

    #64667
    Mr. House
    Participant

    If 99% of people survive their bout with covid, would you notice it? Now if the media screams about it everyday for months, like they did about russiagate, would you notice it?

    #64669
    Geppetto
    Participant

    Know thyself

    #64670
    Geppetto
    Participant

    Yo Dr. D.

    you wrote:

    …..”And remember, FL governor says Covid will only end if Biden is elected. ”

    Sarcasm right? You can’t be talking about Ron DeSantis? Citation por favor.

    #64671
    Arttua
    Participant

    ” Supporters of both President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden regularly assert that the nation will never recover if the other side wins.”
    “They are both partly right but miss the larger point namely, that it is unlikely that either oil supply or demand will ever return to 2018 levels on a sustained basis.

    World Oil Growth is Dependent on U.S. Tight Oil https://www.artberman.com/2020/09/03/stop-expecting-oil-and-the-economy-to-recover/

    “Strangely enough, the limit we seem to be reaching with respect to fossil fuel extraction comes from low prices. At low prices, the extraction of oil, coal, and natural gas becomes unprofitable. Producers go bankrupt, or they voluntarily cut back production in an attempt to force prices higher. As the result of these forces, production tends to fall. This limit comes long before the limit that many people imagine: the amount of fossil fuels in the ground that seems to be available with current extraction techniques.”
    Fossil Fuel Production Is Reaching Limits in a Strange Way

    “Population growth, particularly among 1st world and Asian working age populations, will decline / decelerate (respectively) and the likely decline in births will be greater than projected above. Energy consumption will almost surely grow far less than projected above with a fairly good potential for outright decline”

    “So, it’s the growth of the working-age population in the developed world that is critical for the growth of money within a fractional reserve system.”
    I care who wins the election, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference as we are in the greater depression, and politicos don’t know or will admit it.

    #64672
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Arttua: You give me a reason to acknowledge the lovers parting “cartoon” dots (featured above) – whose business is graphing the detachment of wages from productivity.

    Agree that the Greater Depression is the elephant in the room (for the moment). One more factor playing into the mix is the divergence of wages and productivity that started in the 70’s. This issue alone would have made the future of paying work grim – now add in Covid – and you hit a wall. The growth of the working-age population WORKING is not gonna happen organically unless we reorganize the Way money is created and earned/distributed. No matter who wins the election, they will be making a hard pivot to addressing the economic needs (demands) of the people.

    #64673
    Geppetto
    Participant

    Arttua:

    I made my annual shoulder season jaunt out to the desert last week to ride my MTB. I usually try and put Phoenix at the beginning or the end of the trip. My 92 year old father lives there.This year Phoenix came first. East from central Cal to Bakersfield ,over Tehachapi, Barstow, Parker to Interstate 10 and into Phoenix. Get all my easting done in one sitting. It’s a brute of a drive but I have a good seat and good sound, lots of time to observe and think. Phoenix! Holy crap! The amount of electricity and fossil fuel that is burned there is unfathomable. I learned that they have one of the largest Nuclear power plants in the nation. They need it. The amount of growth and activity there is astounding.
    Where do the get the water?! The automobile is very central to the development plan by my observation. Gas is very cheap by Cali standards,$2.20/gal. Sprawling suburbs under construction. Next stop was Sedona. I love Sedona. This year I have never seen it so busy. I normally dry camp out beyond Boyington canyon. Not this year; the Sprinter Van, motor home/5th wheel crowd has discovered my spot! Found some solace on my fav trails but everywhere it was just packed with peeps. Motel in Flagstaff, up early and north. I love Moab but I know that if the weather is good Moab can be packed with any of the recreational groups. My little voice told me not to do it. Took 89A towards the river and Lees Ferry. I know a good hike there and a good campground. Foiled again! Tons of Peeps and a full camp ground on a Wednesday morning!! I’m think good boondocking at Gooseberry mesa and good riding too. Up from the river , across the Kaibob down towards Hurricane, but money is being poured into road repair coming down into Hurricane, got caught up in a long single lane pilot car scenario and missed my turnoff by 15 miles. There was so much construction chaos I decided to press on to St. George get a lap on some nice trails I know near town. By the time I got to St. George the temp was in the mid 90’s and there was no way an old geezer was gonna suffer riding a bike in that. Screw it! Pedal down! Honey I’m headed home. Las Vegas, what can I say ? You have to see it in the day light to get the full scope of it. Phoenix with a Picasso flair? Sprawl to the north up the valley that takes you breath away and not in a good way. Highways between Las Vegas and Cali have been upgraded and in excellent repair. 4 lanes hauling ass all the way! 15 hours in the saddle. The nicest place on the whole trip was sitting in my chair watching the stars with my pup at 11pm the same day.

    What I think I observed:

    Maybe 12 people east of the coastal Cali counties to Arizona and Utah are voting for Biden. Sarcasm ok? Haha!

    The amount of commerce that is being conducted is far beyond what the MSM is telling us.
    Interstate truck traffic was astounding, non stop in all directions. I’ve been out there 15 times in the last 10 years and I have never seen it like it was. Major truck stops are jammed. I saw coming north up Tehachapi pass (a bottle neck because of the grade) after sunset on Thursday literally hundreds of semi trucks laboring up the pass. Bumper to bumper 3 lanes wide.

    All in all even in the most conservative settings peeps are wearing masks and practicing social d. Honestly, I see more over 70 year old maskless renegades in my very liberal county than I did anywhere in Arizona. It was about flattening the curve right? I think most peeps are doing their part for that. And of course the curve is flat right!

    There is no way the population is declining! Maybe the rate of growth but overall, as world meters shows 9 billion by ..2060? The economy I saw is booming. Stuff is happening!

    Fossil fuel use declining? Ha! The recreational and hospitality industry is thriving. It is currently dependent on free and easy individual transport. I suppose in the the post carbon fueled vehicle world trains may sustain it but it might not work with electric cars…not sure?

    Twitter, Facebook….blogs are definitely not reality on the street. I think that Instagram is a more accurate reflection of *normal* peeps lives. Mostly pics not so much blah blah blah. Again that’s just MHO

    We are the machine people. I am a machine people. Who we are. Technology dependent and fully integrated. I don’t hate myself. Sorry if you do. Coming thru Las Vegas in a giant traffic jam at 2:30 in the afternoon I was wondering about Clarks 2001. The apes woke up to the obelisk, stood up to stroke it and the next day the mass of the bone club became a thing. Evolution. Evolution with some seeding of genetic material or ideas(!) …..or….. just plan dropped of on the planet. hahahahaha!

    To me the biggest stress and chaos inducer is the ‘pace’ of activity in these high population areas. We have to learn to breath…slow….wait and see. I am surly guilty of not doing well at that myself. 15 hours in the saddle…DOH!!!

    None the less, to me, it’s still a wild, crazy and brutally beautiful world!

    Ciao

    #64674
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    “Capitalism is a wonderful mechanism to convert individual human greed into collective virtue.” N. Taleb

    I’ll pair that with “Money is deferred reciprocal altruism.” (Robert Wright) as a nice-sounding even well-intended bit of self-deception.

    Both authors are bright fellows from whom I’ve learned much, but no one’s right all of the time.

    &*(

    People don’t need to reclaim the internet. They need to give it up. Shoot their TV. Oh well. The looming war already in progress will do that for us.

    &$%

    It’s funny reading these remarks whereby people politicize a viral pandemic because it has been politicized by a media they scorn (rightly) as a tool of politics. It’s like a contagious disease about a contagious disease about a contagious disease.

    Infinite Regression

    #$%

    Here’s the beef: The End

    #64675
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “It’s funny reading these remarks whereby people politicize a viral pandemic because it has been politicized by a media they scorn (rightly) as a tool of politics. It’s like a contagious disease about a contagious disease about a contagious disease.”

    Everything is fake, we live in an epoch of fraud. Anything for power Comrade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    #64676
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #64677
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The world seems to be going into a mess in a hurry. It feels very ungrounding. I don’t what to think anymore. I don’t know what is truth and I don’t know what is lies. Maybe I should disconnect from the matrix.

    #64678
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Has anyone read the new Dimitri Orlov post? His thoughts drift where mine have been since Feb.

    “Suppose you were one of the evil geniuses who run the global economy. Of course, you would want to continue running it in a stable, secure, profitable manner in spite of any problems that might crop up now and again. You would want to solve these problems swiftly and efficiently without drawing any undue attention to yourself and your evil ways. What, then, would you currently see as the major problems crying out for a swift, preemptive solution, and how should you address them?

    First, you’d note that there is a major problem developing with the world’s energy supply. This has been endlessly predicted since the mid-1990s, but various technological advancements and geopolitical maneuverings have pushed the final crisis off by two decades. But now the final crisis is getting closer and closer. New resource discoveries have fallen so far behind production that there is no hope of ever catching up. The last great hope for the US and the world, which was fracking, is now failing, having never made much of a profit. Most of the companies involved have either gone bankrupt or are about to. Renewables, in the form of electricity from wind and solar, have proven to be too expensive and disruptive for electric grids because of their intermittency coupled with the impracticality of storing large amounts of electricity. Geopolitical gambits, such as trying to topple Venezuela’s government and steal its oil, or to sanction Russia into behaving like a gas station with its economy in shreds, have all failed. Energy returned on energy invested—a difficult to calculate but ultimately decisive measure of the feasibility of any energy venture—is continuing to decline.

    Being an evil genius rather than just some ignorant amateur armchair pilot, you would be fully cognizant of the fact that failure to do something to balance fossil fuel energy supply against demand would cause global economic collapse. Since the advent of coal-based industrialization, economic growth has always been accompanied by a proportional increase in the use of fossil fuels. But further such increases now appear to be impossible. The existing global economy relies on credit to sustain production, and on continuous growth to remain creditworthy. In this scheme, the only alternative to continuous economic growth is economic collapse. And so you start looking for ways to rebalance the energy equation by shutting down parts of the global economy while allowing others to continue to grow. Since nobody is particularly eager to stampede toward the abattoir, your task is to find a way to mislead them into doing so voluntarily, supposedly for their own good.

    The next question to decide is which industrialized nations are ready for the meathook. You would observe that certain countries have been continuously living beyond their means. They have been endlessly borrowing money far in excess of their economic growth potential and their ability to ever repay the debts they are now taking on is precisely nil. Chief among them is the United States, which has been living on borrowed time for decades now and whose mammoth debt dwarfs all previous excesses combined. Coupled with the gradual loss of reserve currency status by the US dollar and the concomitant loss by the US of the exorbitant privilege of printing money as needed, this has placed the US at the epicenter of the inevitable financial collapse. You would interpret the REPO panic of August 2019, when interest on overnight loans that used US federal debt as collateral spiked to 10%, as a crack in the carefully maintained Potemkin village façade of the US financial system.

    Turning attention to the fiscal situation in the US, you’d notice that the US is no longer able to finance its ever-growing budget deficits by borrowing from abroad because foreigners who are now net sellers of US debt instruments. You are shocked to discover that the US government is now borrowing close to half of what it spends, accumulating short-term debt twice as fast as it could possibly hope to repay it, and nonchalantly planning to roll it over into more short-term debt while borrowing even more in the years to come. An image comes to you of a particularly bullheaded bull standing in the middle of railroad tracks and attempting to stare down an oncoming train.

    Being a financial genius, you know all there is to know about pyramid schemes, and you readily identify this state of affairs as a pure pyramid scheme. Since pyramid schemes all fail, and since they tend to do so more or less instantaneously, you start looking for a way to front-run its collapse in order to maintain control of the situation. Your main short-term objective would be to avoid a worldwide panic by placing the global economy into something like a medically induced coma, feeding it an intravenous drip of free money. This pause would give you an opportunity to make some necessary changes, some of them cosmetic, some quite dramatic. “

    #64679
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ Mr. House, you guys need to remake yourselves, beautiful people in your country despite the social paths. I wish you well

    #64698
    Bill7
    Participant

    Mr. House: thanks for the Orlov piece. He’s well worth a small donation to get all his writing, some of which
    has been spot-on, in my view; such as his stating that each countries’ elites are using the “pandemic” cover
    to implement more drastic and country-tailored, draconian restructurings. We’re in a New Dark Age, folks..

    -Bill7

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