ashvin
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Reverse Engineer post=2444 wrote: [quote=ashvin post=2439]
I love the chess analogy and agree with your points about spiritual /intellectual growth in a world of low material growth. It seems you and I find the most agreement when you respond to discussions that I am not even having.I don’t suppose you guys ever considered putting in a Byline with your articles? I never made a distinction between “autoearthadmin” and “administrator” before. Anyhow my apologies for attributing the authorship incorrectly.
RE
The author and category tags for features/commentaries are on the front page, and the article’s own page.For some odd reason, the forum goes with autoearthadmin instead of our names for topics created by us (but not anyone else).
Reverse Engineer post=2430 wrote: The question of “growth” in whoever is left standing after this knockdown of population is kind of ephemeral, its all in how you define the growth. If growth to you means greater physical comforts, further growth here is highly unlikely. However, that does not mean there cannot be further Spiritual and Intellectual Growth in a low energy world.
I’ll give the example of Chess, which I recently discussed over in the Diner. You like Poker metaphors, I like to use Chess because there is no chance at all involved in Chess, nothing random at all. Yet the outcomes and the Games still are Infinite. Even under an energy paradigm at the paleolithic level, thinkers could still play Chess with Rocks and explore all the variations, to find the Holy Grail of the series of moves that will work so White will Win every time, just as you must always win every time if you play first in the game of Tic Tac Toe.
I love the chess analogy and agree with your points about spiritual /intellectual growth in a world of low material growth. It seems you and I find the most agreement when you respond to discussions that I am not even having.
ben post=2425 wrote: the reason for crown cheeseburger pizza is because american culture in the middle east is fake as fuck and super dorky. just like american culture in europe is fake as fuck and somewhat less dorky. it’s more dorky because it’s more earnest and less jaded. non-american market gimmicks are just dorkier because like with the noveau riche such consumption requires less irony be attached to it. that’s all. it’s embarrassingly honest. tragically hip. this is not to say of course the late, ironic variant that is post-dorky isn’t also dorky. on the contrary. it’s just dork in denial. which of course brings it all the way back around the vortex as the redux of dork, and embarrassing honesty, and tragic hipness. the recycling never ends. until it does.
Are you seriously asking us to believe that you have completely decoded the nature of American culture, as well as its application in all foreign cultures, and how none of that has anything to do with the economic realities of American imperialism? It all comes down to which culture has decided to me more dorky than the other, as the word has been so carefully defined and teased out by ben?
The comment from my friend was clearly intended to be more humorous/sarcastic than an exact description or summation of why corporate food commercials are different elsewhere, unlike the dorky-hip spectrum TOE that you have provided us with. The reason I re-posted it is because I thought it was very symbolic of how empires operate when they are in decline.
There is also a literal (and very obvious) connection between the shift of American corporate innovative/marketing resources and strategies from the developed world to “emerging economies”, as well as the rapid cultural shift (which is not independent of capital shift and corporate manipulation), and the decline of the American empire. But, apparently, that’s a bit too radical of a claim for you to handle.
ks post=2407 wrote: Ash,
Would you mind filling me in on TAE take on FOFOA?
I can fill you in on my general take.
FOFOA makes a lot of valid points in his posts, and clearly understands the structural problems with our current monetary order, i.e. the $IMFS. Where we disagree is why those structural problems have really arisen, and what the near-term implications will be in terms of deflation/HI.
The idea that China or other trade creditors of the US have already or will soon stop recycling our dollars into treasuries (or other dollar-based assets) is an assumption, not a fact. It is an assumption characteristic of the Austrian school, which believes markets are inherently self-regulating and any major imbalances (such as the trade imbalances between surplus/deficit nations) can be fixed in a moment’s notice.
I do not agree with that assumption. Instead, I believe that countries such as China cannot afford to voluntarily defect from the debt-dollar system, i.e. one of their largest export markets, until they can generate sustainable growth from internal consumption, which is a LONG way off (and perhaps will never happen). Therefore, they will only jump ship in a haphazard manner when they are forced to by circumstance, i.e. when the dollar is already hyperinflating and will not buy them energy or other commodities at remotely affordable prices.
If that is true, then the time line for the dollar’s viability as reserve currency may be stretched out significantly longer than FOFOA expects (it’s already much longer than A/FOA expected), even though we are well past the point of “peak exorbitant privilege”. In a nut shell, I believe that FOFOA is greatly under-estimating the momentum of this structurally imbalanced system, failing to see the fundamental inter-dependencies that have been created.
I also have major issues with the theory of Freegold, but that’s a different (yet related) story.
Reverse Engineer post=2412 wrote: You like to examine probabilities, and the likelihood that 50% of the population can be dropped into debtor’s prisons is exceedingly small here.
Who said that 50% of the population would be kept in prison? That’s just one tactic that is currently being used to harass/threaten people and squeeze them for whatever they have to offer, including their cheap labor after they are released. I do believe that it will continue to occur and will get worse in upcoming years, but it’s not the only way people will be slaves to debt.
The key is to understand how to work the system and not let your opponent get the drop on you. If you are deep in debt, be proactive and file bankruptcy first of all. On top of that, file a lawsuit against your creditor for harrassment, contract fraud, and whatever else you can think of that applies. Check the court docket for all your pending cases so you don’t miss any court dates and wait for the opponent to be so busy with other cases he misses a court date. Stretch it out with postponements and extensions.
Agreed.
If its a student loan which can’t be discharged in BK, if you have no income they have nothing to garnisheer anyhow. You can make it your job to tie the thing up in court as long as possible, and since you are not working anyhow it gives you something worthwhile to be doing.
Yes, IF you are the ones smart/lucky enough to have no discernible income and still make ends meet (big IF). And then you must still hope the corporate government complex has reached max prison/jail capacity.
On the probabilities end, its true that it is currently unlikely we will get a complete collapse of the Dollar overnight here, but its increasingly likely said collapse will occur long before your 30 year mortgage or even 15 year student loan could be paid off.
If HI of the dollar represents a complete end to centralized control through forms of debt, then this may be true. If not, and another system of debt-based money (in whatever form that money takes – perhaps energy credits?) and taxes is established, then the risk of enslavement is still present.
If you are currently destitute and Da Goobermint will guarantee you loans to pay for you to go bang some coeds for the next 4 years, you can weigh the odds you’ll ever have to pay it all off against the clear near term benefits of a Dorm Room, the Meal Plan in the Cafeteria and regular Nookie.
Remember to factor in the odds of some kid going postal and executing dozens of people in nearby classrooms. That’s what happened my last month of college.
If you are “destitute”, make it through high school, are able to get a loan and have absolutely no better way to spend the next 4 years of your life, then, yeah, maybe you’re right.
When the Iranians go Pearl Harbor, you’re likely to be Conscripted anyhow, and in return for signing up to be Cannon Fodder, Da Goobermint will probably wipe your loan off the books if you manage to make it back alive.
That counts as enslavement in my book.
Also, keep in mind that we are not only talking about people who borrowed money in the conventional sense. We are also talking about anyone who has been processed through the judicial system for any criminal/civil violation and owes fines/taxes of any sort, as well as people who never owed anything in the first place, like Lisa Lindsay.
steve from virginia post=2392 wrote: It’s never going to end, ‘things’ will never get ‘better’.
It’s really a question of euthanasia at this point – whether anyone is left with the voluntary choice of seeking the services of Dr. Kevorkian, or whether we are all forced to die slowly and in agony, because they tell us the alternative is “wrong”. I believe modern human civilization, or at least portions of it, can potentially still go out with a modicum of dignity, as free beings.
Basseterre Kitona post=2388 wrote: Wait…which next weekend are we talking about? May 6 is the weekend after this next one, right?
This (weekend) Sunday is April 29, next (weekend) Sunday is May 6.
Reverse Engineer post=2385 wrote: A few of my fellow Diners would dispute that point. Some are of the opinion that the Illuminati have been through this so many times that they can steer a collapse however they choose, utilizing Bernay’s style propaganda to move the masses in the right general direction (for them), then using Agents Provacateur, Assassination, False Flags et al to tweak the nature of the upheaval.
Doesn’t matter. They could be practicing and honing those techniques since the dawn of mankind, and would still not be able to achieve certainty over how the system responds. It’s really a physical impossibility.
Anyhow, that is my theory on it, and I grant the very SLIM possibility that I could be wrong.
My theory is similar, except I view their loss of control as a compounding effect from multiple systems collapse (financial, economic, energy, ecological), rather than only due to the collapse of net energy/resource flows. My view is partially outlined in the series, “The Math is Different at the Top”:
Part I – The Math is Different at the Top
Part II – Financial Threats to Power
Part III – Will Water Set the World on Fire?
Part IV – When the Lights Go OutI should emphasize, though, that their loss of control is a distinct possibility for me, not a certainty. Nothing is certain.
Reverse Engineer post=2377 wrote: In Poker, the end result of the Winner Take All Tournaments leaves with all the Chips and they can be converted into Cash which still buys something outside the Casino doors.
REI don’t mess around with tournaments too much, strictly cash! Although, most tournaments pay out about 10% of the entrants (but the top 1% make all the real money).
I am of the opinion that our broad economic/financial systems contain a decent amount of variance in its own right, for everyone involved. If we are talking strictly about the debt-based monetary system in isolation, then it is true that it will aggregate all the chips in one place over the long-run. But nothing exists in isolation. There are economic, social, cultural and political dimensions to the monetary system. It’s hard to look at Europe right now and think that everything there is going according to plan for the elites. There are many unintended consequences to their actions (another way of saying luck or variance). Some are relatively unimportant in the large scheme of things, but others, such as the growing sociopolitical unrest, have the potential to be much more disruptive. OTOH, it could end up being a gift in disguise for TPTB. It’s also possible that it is ALL a part of their plan, but that is only a possibility, not a certainty. They certainly need disasters/upheaval to completely change the “order” of things, but they can never be certain exactly what kind of upheaval they will get. That’s what luck is all about.
JoeP post=2356 wrote: Ash,
Sounds like you get some satisfaction seeing your fellow players “implode spectacularly into a pit of despair”…or am I dramatizing this?
Depends. If my “fellow” player is a cocky, arrogant, mean-spirited A-hole, then I do get some satisfaction seeing this happen, yes. Plenty of those people at the tables. Although, I never rub salt into wounds or kick a man when he’s down. Plenty of those people at the tables, too. Mostly, though, I try to stay unemotional/objective and don’t care one way or another what happens to the stacks of the other players (who I don’t know well).
In a probabilistic system with imperfect information, there is always luck (or variance).
I will posit to you that TPTB have access to “infinite credit” at the table of life and therefore can always extract value from every other player in the long-run, no matter what cards they are dealt. I am positing that even though we have some difference of opinion on this matter, because I don’t think it’s necessary to bring all of that back up for our purposes here.
Even still, I think you would agree that TPTB do not actually care whether you or I, as specific human beings, are able to use our skills to accumulate wealth and have “upwards economic mobility”. As long as they are taking an ever-increasing share off the top, and keeping rough percentages of the population in their roles as indentured servants, middle class consumers, etc., than the system is kept alive and the specifics of what we can accomplish is irrelevant.
For us, though, it is very relevant, and that’s where luck (variance) comes in. We spend years developing and applying these skills to the game of life, and sometimes we will greatly overshoot our expectations (or expected value), and other times we will greatly undershoot them. We usually cannot even tell which one because it’s near impossible to calculate the expected value of our skills in the first place, but we can be sure that the variance is happening. Which is part of the reason why some of the hardest working, most skilled people can remain in poverty for their whole lives and the lives of their children while much less-skilled people can live like Kings.
You will NEVER take away the marbles from the Illuminati with access to Infinite Credit though. All you are doing in this Poker Game is taking away stuff form the lesser players, the 3rd World countries in the grand game. You are not TOUCHING the wealth of those running the monetary system, who create the very Chips you bet in this game.
In a strict poker analogy that is true, but the game of life is bigger than anything they have total control of. I think we are in agreement on this, because I have seen you say multiple times that the elite will eventually lose control due to the collapse of net energy/resource flows. In a probabilistic system with imperfect information (and, I should say, finite resources), eventually everyone will run into a streak of bad luck.
Note the Addendum that has been inserted into the article, with a graph illustrating variance (luck) in poker.
RE,
While the stock market or other “regulated” markets make for good analogies to table games in a casino, where the house always has an edge, I don’t think it’s a great analogy for individuals attempting to be “successful” in our economic system as a whole. I like to use the poker analogy instead, because a good (skilled) poker player can theoretically beat the house’s rake and earn a healthy profit rate against other players in the long-run. Practically, though, many of them end up falling victim to the short/medium-term variance and implode spectacularly into a pit of despair.
RE,
Note the word “literal” in front of Matrix. I suspect you knew that I was using it literally, because you know that I agree with everything you said about our coercive institutions (see The Debt-Dollar Discipline Parts I-III). Now we are getting into a quibble over words, but I think it’s clear that high levels of coercion/influence is distinct from actual “programming”, like computer software is programmed.
In my comment about the European 19th century socialist revolutions (which does not include the Bolshevik Revolution), I was referring mainly to the pan-European Revolutions of 1848. The fact is that I only have to provide one example of a major event within human society in the last few centuries that was not orchestrated by TPTB to undermine the “absolute control” myth. I believe there are more than one, but one will suffice.
The Bolshevik Revolution and the susbequent long-running Communist State of the Soviet Union was most certainly influenced by external, elite powers, to the point where I will even admit that it was planned all along to help the forces of evil. But can we say the same of the 1848 revolutions, or the Spanish Revolution in 1936? Or the numerous anti-capitalist revolutions in Latin America (most of the US/CIA orchestration was done to overthrow socialist regimes threatening to nationalize resources and replace them with puppet capitalists).
Was Jimmy Hoffa a CIA operative (as opposed to just another influential person who was assassinated by the CIA)??
Getting back to the Matrix, Triv,
The reason I brought it up was because you made an argument that our long-running system has “architects”, who have made sure that its specifically designed structures will cause people to think/behave in certain ways. Maybe you haven’t seen the movies, but that’s exactly the same word they use to described who designed the Matrix. Candace and I took issue with the use of the word “architect”, because it implies exactly the “black and white” way of thinking that you are now criticizing me of. I do not believe the system as a whole was designed by a conscious human force from the top-down, even though significant parts of it were (i.e. the FRA/Fed, Breton Woods Agreement, U.N., etc.).
So, you are correct, there is no total “black” of programming, but nobody is wrong because nobody is arguing that. You miss the point that there is a gray area of “programming,” “control” and “manipulation” that is occurring in societies across the world. It isn’t 100%, but it is quite effective. So effective, in fact, it baffles me how it could possibly work. I’m still trying to reverse engineer it.
Propaganda, massive amounts of logical fallacies, a media controlled to where it hides the biting truth that humanity really needs to know… its all out there.
I do not miss that point. I have been making that very same point in many different articles over the last 2 years. This whole discussion with you and RE has been to place emphasis on that point over either of the other extremes, i.e. there is very little control held by those at the top or there is absolute control held by those at the top.
By the way, you grossly misstate the positions of Alex Jones and David Icke. The ENTIRE reason they are out fighting and resisting these tyrants in the “infowar” is PRECISELY because they don’t think these tyrants have the kind of control you claim they say they have.
No, I am not misstating Icke’s position in terms of how human civilization has evolved throughout history. Just look it up. The only time he believes TPTB have lacked control is right now after the year 2012, due to spiritual energies that will swamp the Earth, emanating from the center of our galaxy and channeled through the Sun. He does claim to be a force for positive change against the NWO agenda, but, IMO, his actual ideas/message lead me to believe that he is the exact opposite of that. Here’s a video I posted up in DD about this issue – it’s well worth the listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbEgvx1qelw&feature=player_embedded
Peter,
I was simply outlining ONE potential (but major) risk that I see with your third option, and was not saying that its generally a bad idea. Of course I would rather see a peaceful transition to an alternative, sustainable way of living rather than bloody revolution. The reason I mentioned the risk is because I believe it is one that is most likely materializing within the truther movement right now. Specifically, the new age spiritual movements and their various icons. Many of their beliefs just so happen to coincide with the plans of the NWO elite, and they are the ones who will be (are) presenting us with these new “alternatives” to the globalist paradigm. I would just caution that we remain very skeptical of those alternatives until we can be certain that they are not simply another means of taking us to the exact same place TPTB want to go.
Candance, excellent analogy and you are spot on! Before I get into trouble, though, let me say that I don’t believe human societies evolve exactly according to the rules that biological species do, but there are many comparisons that can be made and your main point is valid. What is clear to me is that we are not living in a literal Matrix, in which everyone’s reality is programmed from the beginning. At least, there is no group of human beings that can act as the programmers.
Triv,
Hi Ashvin, the main issue was that nobody credible claims the straw man you created and are, apparently, trying to light afire…
>>but I don’t agree that it has been the sole driver of major historical developments or that the conspirators have always maintained absolute control over the system as a whole.<< Nobody argues this. It doesn’t exist. Yet you build it up anyway, one piece of straw at a time. Why do you think people like me are in the fight, **with no help from TAE mind you**, to get GMO pesticide facsimile food labelled?
Note the comment you keep quoting as a “straw man” was directed towards RE. He subsequently said he doesn’t believe that, which I take at face value (really, RE’s view and mine are very similar), but the point still remains that some of the people mentioned in our discussions do, such as David Icke. Alex Jones is slightly better in this regard, but not by a whole lot.
You, Triv, keep arguing in support of things that NO ONE is denying, as if we are denying them. I applaud you for battling the big agri-businesses and their malicious practices, but what does that have to do with the broad perspectives I have been discussing here? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. Most of us are already well aware of everything you have been saying, and, on top of that, we AGREE with you. So that has never been what this discussion is about.
I encourage you to keep doing what you do and posting links/info about these various govt/corporate shenanigans, but please don’t attack me as if I am disputing them and say that I am creating “straw mans” within a debate that I am not even having.
Triv,
We are talking about completely different things now. You have a tendency to take my comments about very specific issues and shift them back to the general discussion that you want to have about debt dollar tyranny. I appreciate all of the links/info you post here, and I think it is helpful for others, but trust me when I say that none of it is new to me at all. I have watched all of Bill Still’s videos before, and I understand the various ways/examples how the debt-dollar system works and TPTB use it to control the media, academic institutions, government, etc.
RE and I were having a different discussion about the more finer points of conspiratorial narratives and meta-narratives, with the latter being ones which try to incorporate every major historical development in human civilization into a unified conspiratorial framework. They are basically trying to find the Theory of Everything when it comes to the evolution of human society. So I am not making a straw man argument in that discussion. Plenty of people out there argue those points all the time, and many of them are very influential in the “truther” movement.
Peter O post=2315 wrote: [quote=ashvin post=2163]
Being a newbie here I may cover some ground that has already been covered. Forgive me if that is the case.There is a third alternative to flight/hide or fight that rarely gets mentioned which I find most attractive. It may now be too late to implement it for the current situation but it is worth considering.
Fight or flight supposes direct confrontation is the only way to resolve the dispute with our current leaders (TPTB) if we don’t desire the future they are attempting to implement.
The third option is to provide an attractive alternative to the TPTB’s planned future that attracts enough people to participate that it breaks TPTB’s powerbase. Historically it only takes 5 to 10% of the population to accomplish this.
Peter, this third option you mention is a very tricky one. It sounds good in theory, but in practice it may take us in the opposite direction of where we want to go. We can be sure that the NWO elites would like nothing more than to co-opt resistance movements (i.e. the “truthers”) and get from here to Hell without too much bloody confrontation. The best way for them to do that is to make the current resistance believe that they have defeated the NWO agenda, and that this “attractive alternative” society will be something completely different. In reality, though, it will end up being exactly what the elites need to justify a one world government, maintain advanced control of the masses, and perhaps even to systematically depopulate the globe. Some people would call this “the new, new world order”.
RE wrote: I never made the claim that its the “sole driver” of major historical developments, for instance I don’t think the Illuminati caused Toba to erupt 75,000 years ago. There’s plenty of randomness in the system, but the primary historical narrative shows clear direction. Besides that, at least or the last 400 years since the BoE was founded the power centers in the City of London and Zurich have been abundantly clear. Besides that, the familial lines have held up quite well overall also, the House of Windsor for instance isn’t doing too bad and neither are the heirs of Mayer Rothschild or John D. Rockefeller. So why is it much of a leap to speculate that such maintenance of control doesn’t span millenia beyond centuries?
OK, I understand that. But what do you think about episodes such as the 19th century socialist revolutions in Europe, or the 20th century momentum of labor movements in the West, or other similar things? Would you say that all of these significant events in human socioeconomic relations were orchestrated by the multi-generational elites, all part of their master plan for eventual global dominance? That’s what I mean by a lack of “absolute control” over the system as a whole. The system is not solely defined by the generalized paradigm of wealth/power concentration among an elite, coordinated group of people and their descendants, but rather is comprised of many different realities simultaneously existing and evolving for millions and now billions of people, some of which are rather detached from that general paradigm.
Reverse Engineer post=2304 wrote: We agree on that one Ash! Welcome to the community of Conspiracy Theorists! In the words of Winston Churchill, “We have determined what you are Madam, now we are only quibbling about the Price.” LOL.
…
The main difference I think between you and I is you don’t seem willing to go back in Mr. Peabody’s WAYBAC machine much further than 1913 and the founding of Da Fed and the current incarnation here of what appears to me to be a multi-millenia Conspiracy, perpetuated by SYSTEMS which trancend the lifespan of any individual Homo Sapiens. The very SAME people who began it obviously no longer run it, but it is designed in such a way as to make sure that their Heirs do, both of the Genetic Kind and the Spiritual Kind. The SYTEM itself is the EVIL. The system is MONEY, and it is the ROOT of all Evil.
Well, we kind of agree. When I say the “system”, I mean all of the non-living structures that have evolved + the human elements. So I agree that coordinated conspiracy has had a large influence for long periods of time, but I don’t agree that it has been the sole driver of major historical developments or that the conspirators have always maintained absolute control over the system as a whole. I’m willing to go back to any time in the past in my mind (and I do), but I’m less willing (not unwilling) to speculate on how conspiracies operated in the distant past in public, because I haven’t come across any sets of evidence that would make me very confident in such speculation. I guess that’s the main difference between us – I’m not a speculator by nature, and I feel the act of speculation sometimes does more harm than good, as it adds to the abundance of confusion out there and may lead people down the wrong path.
Clearly, the economics dictate that privately financed media is controlled.
Clearly, the fruits of the controlled media are there – get out of line and get fired. Every news anchor sees this and acts accordingly.
Triv,
You are really making my argument for me in your last post. It has been my assertion that a significant portion of the coerced thoughts/behavior we have seen over the years can be attributed to the system, and it is a system that dates back farther than anything that can be called “debt-dollar tyranny”. It is the difference between saying “Amy Goodman is someone who is 100% intentionally misdirecting her viewers because she is a member of a coordinated conspiracy” and saying “there is a decent chance that Amy Goodman is unable/unwilling to embrace/express the truth, even though she believes otherwise”. Sometimes the distinction is irrelevant and sometimes it is very important – but, regardless, there is a big distinction.
I was grinding out the tables at AC for the last five days, which is why daily content dropped off. That’s what I do most nights and weekends – play poker. I got debts that still need to be paid off! And it’s one of the few things, if not only thing, that I’m good at, is within my ethical boundaries and leaves me some free time during the daytime to write. I probably shouldn’t have up and left for a week without a mumbling word, so I apologize for doing so.
re: the real subject of this thread
To be perfectly honest, I view TAE as only three things (above and beyond a platform for the views of I&S).
First, a venue to express my somewhat customized perspective on what is happening in the world, namely in terms of economics/finance. Second, a way of alerting as many people as possible to the great monetary/physical/mental risks we face in upcoming years, so they are not caught completely off guard. Most of you regulars understandably don’t find much added value in that goal, but it’s one of the most important ones for me. Lastly, TAE is an online community in which people can carry on various discussions, garner psychological support and generally have a “good time”. The last one is a nice thing to have, but one that doesn’t concern me too much.
The one thing TAE is not for me, unlike Ilargi, is a business. That’s my luxury, and his curse. We are all equally critical of our money-oriented, greed-filled society, but he is still required to put A LOT of effort into making TAE a profitable operation. I, on the other hand, really don’t care if the “customers” are comfortable and happy. I want people to keep reading, and I will do anything within my power to make the site more user-friendly and agreeable, but I won’t ever apologize for what I do here or re-think why I do it.
I just go with the flow these days, and try to be grateful that I have a chance to help others in this unique way, during these trying times. Hopefully it works out, but it might not. Nothing is certain and many things are outside of our control. Maybe this is one of those things, maybe it isn’t. It’s only been a few months since the new site went up, so I’m pretty sure people will eventually get used to it and be satisfied with the way things are, whatever that ends up being.
So those are my thoughts on this issue, and that’s the last you will hear from me about it.
TheTrivium4TW post=2217 wrote: Hi Ash, yes we do disagree on the selfish nature of people. Perhaps it is a definition issue. My definition of “selfish” is not caring for others equal to oneself.
If you think everyone cares for others equal to themselves, but the system somehow forces them to buy a Beemer for $50k instead of buying a Corolla for $10k and spending $40k feeding the starving, then we disagree. In fact, one of my main thesis is that Big Finance Capital are experts at using our selfish nature against us. The bubble only occurred because society was greedy. They couldn’t do it alone – and Nicole is right that the prey played right into the hands of the predator. She’s right – but I’m going to spend the majority of time warning the community about the r*pist.
No, I don’t think the system forces anyone to do anything (as in they have no other choice). For many, the system presents them with the option between a certain level of active participation or death. For others, it is between high standards of living and conformity or lower standards and outcast status. Of course, it’s not that simple of a dichotomy, but the point is that the system, just like TPTB who operate within it, is not all-powerful and cannot eliminate the concept of free will.
What it can do is greatly increase the chances that people will think and act in a certain way when confronted with various circumstances. I am not arguing that there is no individual selfishness involved, but rather that this human capability for selfish thought/behavior is brought to the forefront of our socioeconomic relations through the structures of the system.
Don’t think that these crooks didn’t know a bust was gonna come, though. They knew a bust was going to come in 1913 when they set this system up. They’ve been preparing for it ever since.
…
Just like I explained to the “Democracy Now” woman who tried to argue DN wasn’t controlled, “Controlled.”First, with regards to all the stuff you said that is not quoted, I do not really disagree. I also don’t disagree that the people who established the Federal Reserve knew how it could be used for their benefit through credit booms/busts within the logic of our system, and would ultimately result in the latest epic bust. Plenty of people knew that’s exactly how the capitalist industrial-financial system would work, dating back to 18th century. Don’t forget about the Long Depression (23 years) which began in 1870 and persisted during a period in which the US was on the gold standard and did not have a central bank. 1913 simply marks the year in which a select group of elites finally managed to get their way and create a completely unaccountable institution which would efficiently harness the inherent tendencies of the system for their benefit.
With regards to this issue of “control”, it all depends. If I remember correctly, you convinced a woman that DN was “controlled” by asking her why they never talk about the Fed system created in 1913 and debt-based money? Do you really see no other plausible explanations? Perhaps Amy Goodman is a paid shill that is being given orders from above, but that is pure speculation, and there are alternate explanations for her ignorance and/or unwillingness to delve into certain subjects. I know plenty of people who have no idea what I’m talking about when I say “debt-based money”, even after I explain the concept to them. There are many factors that go into that resistance to embrace the truth.
FrankRichards post=2210 wrote: Or, more simply, no matter what was and is expected, both refining capacity and consumption have been rising faster in the developing world — which actually is developing these days — than they have been falling in the west. When this ceases, prices may well fall. Until then….
For all X, where X is a real number, (X+4.2-3.0) > X.
I don’t think it’s that simple. See points a) and b) above. We don’t live in a linear world governed by linear equations for linear crises. Prices will not respond predictably or proportionally to the IEA data on refining capacity and consumption.
isst,
I understand that leveraged speculation by the banking/energy complex has played a huge roll in elevating commodity (oil) prices both before and after the GFC. Indeed, that is a main part of my argument for why prices will face a lot of resistance in the short-term (within 5 years). Couple plummeting demand with bank deleveraging, and you have a recipe for price collapse.
MayAllBWell,
The issue you just raised is what I refer to as the “financial fingerprint of instability” (see Revisiting the Financial Fingerprint of Instability). It is a situation in which the financial markets, and most clearly the equity markets, have lost most of their resilience and are now extremely prone to high volatility over short periods of time. The consequences of that for the big players should not be under-estimated, as they are now forced to cannibalize themselves for marginal profits in the “new normal” of synchronized HFT.
As the graphs above indicate, it is not just investors’ time horizons that have lost most of their variability with the inexorable rise of HFT, but also the differences in the number of stocks traded and the volume of those trades. And the situation has only become worse since that time. From mid-2011 to the first month of 2012 was a period marked by an unprecedented drop in volume for the S&P 500, while European markets have followed similar trends [As the No-Volume Market Churns]. This was also a period of great volatility in markets, with frequent episodes of systemic fear gripping these markets by their throats in the Fall of 2011.
Indeed, U.S. markets finally ended a gut-wrenching 2011 barely changed from where they started the year. The only thing investors gained from the tumultuous market that year was painful whiplash and heartache, as well as the prospect of even more instability in the future. One of the key drivers of this greatly decreased variability in the market over the last few years had been the unabated exodus of the retail investor, who could no longer endure the torture and had completely yielded to robotic traders.
…
People investing their capital through mutual funds and pension funds have traditionally been the source of variable time horizons, investment sizes and allocations for the equity markets, but they are all but out of the equation now. What’s perhaps more interesting is how even the limited variability provided by HFT market participants is now in the process of disappearing, as the robotic traders who can longer compete are weeded out.
…
So, as noted in my original piece, the natural and variable heartbeat of most equity markets worldwide, and especially in the U.S., has been completely eradicated, leaving the “brain” starved of oxygen for much too long. There is no cognition, creativity or conscience left – only the mundane and de-humanized life of patients who are being kept alive by an assortment of machines. However, even the machines are running out of the energy required to keep them powered on, because liquidity is no longer enough for the big money players. The hope of witnessing the market bounce back to a healthy and stable life has been overtaken by the pain and agony of watching it die.
Some of the BIGGEST players, i.e. the people even higher than the Mafia bosses in your analogy, can probably afford to take a hit in the equity markets, as they can dump their holdings early on and can continue to feed on the lifeblood of smaller institutions and taxpayers. These are the people who will probably have bets placed against the market that more than offset any non-backstopped losses they will incur. The bond and derivative markets, though, are a different story, even for them.
TheTrivium4TW post=2179 wrote: Having said that, I think a forum dedicated to “Conspiracy Theory” here at TAE would add value to TAE. Those that want to contribute could and those that don’t could stay far away.
We could add a separate section for that, perhaps. I just figured people could start those threads in the Open Comments section.
PS – Ash, I agree with you that Capitalism ends ugly every single time. I also am convinced Communism does as well – and usually much faster. The former takes time to aggregate corrupting power where the latter starts out with corrupting power.
The root cause is human selfishness… at the top, in the management class, in the middle class, in the low class and even among the poverty stricken. Those that read the Bible might phrase it thusly, “failing to love (care for) one another as as we love (care for) ourselves.” AKA, sin.
No system can overcome selfishness.
I largely agree with the sentiments expressed in the comments by RE and ben, and I think this discrepancy is a fundamental part of why you and I, and perhaps El G, have different “big pictures”. If I could sum up the difference in one sentence, it would be this:
The system breeds the sociopathic elites, rather than the other way around.
Capitalist industrial systems are perhaps the most efficient at manufacturing such people, but, as you point out, it is something endemic in all complex, large-scale systems. It is these structures of political economy, rather than an innate human tendency to be selfish, that bring out the worst qualities in humanity and lead to concentrated (and coordinated) pockets of wealth and power.
Assuming the theories of peak oil/resources and net energy decline are true (to me, that is kind of like saying “assuming the theories of evolution and general relativity are true”), then we must ask ourselves what will happen to the complexity/scale of our political economies. And what that, in turn, will mean for the prospects of TPTSB that have traditionally exerted vast amounts of influence/control over national/international/global human society. I do not believe there is any simple answer to the latter question, but I do believe we can say with confidence that they are currently being, and will continue to be, confronted with events that are outside of their control and deleterious to their plans.
MayAllBWell,
I very briefly discussed the issue of FRNs at the end this post – Paying for Protection
At that time, I figured it was simply another way for the UST to accommodate ever-increasing demand for treasuries in the current environment, where people are fleeing European bonds and other high-yield debt-assets in droves. The FRNs are basically a way to buy treasuries (preserve capital) with an implicit interest rate swap built in, which eliminates IR risk and only leaves credit risk. Basically, it is a bond packaged with a hedging mechanism.
ZH seems to think that the fact that the TBAC (the big banks) are on board with this idea implies they believe short-term IR will spike in the near future, perhaps later this year or sometime next year, and by that time the UST will have substituted FRNs for a good portion of the outstanding normal treasury notes held by the large financial institutions. This will leave both the UST and the large institutions solvent, while those holding other risk-assets such as private bonds and stocks will get clobbered. Indeed, a significant spike in short-term IR should be expected to trigger a huge RISK OFF period.
That being said, my initial thoughts are that ZH is being a bit alarmist here, as usual. It’s still possible that the FRNs are just a means of providing more customized supply of treasuries to institutions with increasing demand. Similar to IR swaps or any other hedging device, they will also help sustain demand at extremely low interest rates. I can’t imagine the Fed is planning on raising its funds rate any time soon (they said not until 2014), and don’t see many other reasons for a gut-wrenching spike in treasury rates either.
Several years down the line, though, it could be an entirely different story, and the fact that the UST’s debt portfolio has been largely transitioned to FRNs may be a useful mechanism for it to forestall a full-blown sovereign debt crisis like those occurring in the Euro periphery. Although, many things may have changed by that time (including the composition of the EU), and it is hard to predict just how devastating a large spike in IR will be. One thing is for sure – investments in equities will be demolished.
jal post=2184 wrote:
What else would one expect when trying to solve a debt problem by piling on more layers of unproductive debt?
Exchange/replace the “unproductive debt” for a cash producing/generating asset. (printing press heheheh)
Yes, that’s one of the things that the EZ periphery including Spain need to do. Print away their debts, or, better still, establish a legitimate debt moratorium/forgiveness program. They cannot do either of those things in a meaningful way as long as they remain a part of the Union.
Oh, and one more thing. In El G’s last thread here, he brought up the issue of what we should be doing above and beyond lifeboat preparations, which may prove to be useless in the event of totalitarian rule that sees any and all protections from the rule of law thrown out the window. So I would like to add my brief contribution to that issue here:
Be prepared to kill your neighbors.
If the history of active resistance movements in the 20th century have taught us anything, it is that they will not be remotely successful unless they find ways to remain clandestine (obviously) and to prevent others who are not actively resisting from informing on them. The only way to achieve the latter is to make sure that any potential informers fear you more than they fear TPTSB. You must let it be known that anyone who informs on the resistance or aids the rulers in any way will be punished by death, and then you will have to make good on that threat many times before it sinks in.
For those of us who aren’t in the “right” frame of mind to kill our neighbors, or don’t have the skills or desire to engage in lifelong avoidance strategies, we will just have to fall back on lifeboat preps and pray everything works out for the best.
Let me be the first to say that I respect El G’s decision here. I, for one, am going to really miss his contributions – I have learned a lot from him both on TAE and through private e-mails, via numerous links to quality sources of information and his own commentary on that information. I also genuinely feel bad that my comments to him about the US Constitution constituted the “straw” that broke his back.
That being said, I am not sorry that I made those comments. I was simply defending myself against accusations that I, and TAE in general, are irrelevant by a long-time reader and contributor who had decided that his “big picture” was bigger than everyone elses’ here, and that everything else they write is irrelevant unless they acknowledge that. In that same vein, I take issue with this sentence in El G’s article on DD:
The staff of TAE chooses to believe that the coming collapse is just a mindless Hegelian unfolding of the age old boom-bust cycle
This is flat out wrong and misleading. Since, afaik, I&S have never referenced Hegel before, I presume El G is mainly referring to me and my articles, which incorporate philosophical concepts. His comment reflects the mentality that, if someone doesn’t believe that everything happening is 100% attributable to “controlled demolition” and doesn’t make that the core subject of everything they write, then they have become irrelevant. Perhaps El G has forgot how many times I have written about and referenced the intentional/planned nature of what’s happening now, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done so in both articles and comments.
(see The Math is Different at the Top Parts I-IV, Jumping the Treasury Shark, Bailing Out the Thimble With The Titanic, Welcome to Slaughter-House Finance, Die Wahrheit Macht Frei, The Torture of the European Periphery, Our Depraved Future of Debt Slavery Parts I-III)
Granted, my approach to those issues are not the same as someone like Alex Jones, and I do not have nearly the same level of in-depth analysis on them, because that’s just not what I do or how I think. I like to present them in what I feel is the most realistic way, instead of one that plays on emotions and anger towards the “all-powerful” elites TSB and blames them for every aspect of our collective predicaments. Ironically, the reason why I began to reference the “controlled demolition” aspect of what’s happening less and less is because I felt that it was too narrow a perspective and did not account for the nuanced “big picture” that we really have to deal with (in which there is a very significant chance that any plans for a global totalitarian police state will fail).
Similarly, the fact that we don’t spend time discussing geopolitics and the “war on terror” here does not mean we are ignorant of what’s going on in the world and how it is extremely inter-connected to financial/economic issues. It simply means that we find more value in focusing on what we know for certain about the financial system, instead of speculating on events/effects that we can’t possibly know – such as when an upcoming war with Iran will occur and how exactly it will affect the price of oil and the global economy in the medium to long-term.
Anyway, for the sake of brevity, I will just say that what we do here at TAE, and specifically what I do here (since I can speak best for myself), is anything but “mindless” or ignorant of broad conspiratorial forces at play. That is simply a misunderstanding of my personal “big picture”, which, I will freely admit, is partly due to the fact that I jump around from topic to topic as I see fit and embrace abstract, philosophical strains of thought. As I said before, though, I respect El G’s opinions and his decision to focus his efforts elsewhere, and I wish him the best of luck! There is no doubt we will all need plenty of it in the near future.
Triv,
Yes, well, no capitalist industrial system can come close to surviving without asset stripping and aggregating/concentrating wealth from all corners of the globe. Once that reality is established, it is rather easy to form the intent for doing the asset stripping, and customize institutions (such as the Fed) to make it an uber-efficient process. It’s only a matter of survival! (for the few who benefit from the system… everyone else can die)
Also add the BOE into the list of irrelevant central banks (see full article posted in the daily links at the bottom of front page)
Concerns about QE in its current form are growing, though. A number of economists have questioned the effectiveness of conducting further gilt purchases, and at least two members of the Bank’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) have urged the Governor to consider buying other assets.
Last year, the Bank itself indicated that it was becoming difficult to conduct QE without distorting the gilts market.
pipefit post=2115 wrote: Let’s think this through. As a person’s state or local (or private) pension (or employment) gets destroyed or reduced, that will result is a loss of purchasing power. It will also push that person closer to food stamp eligibility. Food stamps are about as close to ‘money’ as anything out there. Given the strength of the farm state lobby, working in concert with advocates for the poor, this is one program that will NOT be cut, but rather expanded.
This process of state/local/private pension destruction will make millions even MORE dependent on social security, medicare, military pensions, VA benefits, federal govt. worker pensions, etc. This increased dependency will make even HARDER to reduce these programs. And since these programs will be funded almost entirely with ‘out of thin air’ money, the result will be hyper inflation.
I have never heard the argument that more people being forced onto food stamps will lead to a wage/price spiral into high inflation or HI. So you get points for being unique, but that’s about it. As RE said above, replacing people’s salaries and benefits/pensions with welfare benefits for gruel and ram-shack housing is not a road to HI. In addition, I disagree with the premise that everyone who loses a pension will end up qualifying for these benefits, instead of simply being forced to cut back on how much they spend. You also seem to ignore the fact that many people are going and will continue to go homeless, hungry and/or die, precisely because they are so dependent on a system of public benefits that no longer exists for them.
As to your statement that we are already in a ‘deflation’, then why are consumer and producer prices galloping higher? House prices are down, and hundreds of other things are higher. You go to shadowstats and you can see an honest summary of where the composite is going. Maybe, at some point, the deflationary forces will over take the inflationary ones, but they haven’t done so yet.
Prices are not a great indicator because they are backwards-looking and very relative. “Galloping higher” compared to what? The price of crude is still lower than it was 4 years ago, even though its affordability for most Americans has plummeted. There is also a huge amount of leveraged speculation that goes into energy/commodity prices, and we all know how that ends up when financial panic sets in. With regards to housing prices, home equity is the single biggest asset on the average middle to upper-middle class American’s balance sheet, so significantly lower property valuations, which only have further to fall, is a big deal in terms of reduced aggregate demand.
TheTrivium4TW post=2109 wrote: So even if AGW is significant, there is still a conspiracy to rig the solution so that the insiders make billions and the poor and middle class get dramatically more poor.
I never hear anyone separating the issues – so the flow seems to go… I believe in AGW, everyone who doesn’t is a kook, therefore the system’s solution is good and I support it.
Well you haven’t been hanging out with the right crowd, then. I have always maintained that the TPTB will use real (naturally evolving) AND manufactured (top-down coordinated) crises to their own advantage. That is what “disaster capitalism” is all about. There is not much difference between Katrina and AGW, in that sense. So I agree with you that the “solutions” proposed for AGW are both entirely inadequate and designed to benefit the minority elites with vast influence over the legislative/executive processes.
Like I said before, Triv, I have written about many of the points you raise in your posts. We are in agreement about many things. And RE said he agrees with 90% of what I write… so I guess I agree with 90% of what he writes. So, really, there is not much substantive disagreement going on here. It is mostly a disagreement over making unwarranted assumptions and attaching personal labels, and I wouldn’t expect anyone here to cop to being an arrogant, closed-minded, self-involved Ahole.
pipefit post=2101 wrote: The idea that state and local government budget problems will be a big driver in a deflationary depression is misguided. Look at it this way. All state and local govt. pension plans COMBINED, are estimated to be UNDERfunded by somewhere between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. Since these entities can’t print or coin money, there is a max $3 trillion of deflationary forces, as perceived pension wealth is destroyed.
There are several logical flaws contained within your post. One, you are not properly describing the way debt deflation works. It is rooted in positive feedback mechanisms which greatly magnify the impact of the deleveraging. For ex., $3T in pensions wiped out does not mean only $3 in wealth disappears from workers/households, but much more, because it will feed back into depressed spending, business revenues, taxes, increased unemployment, etc., etc.
As to your other point, you are simply assuming the Fed government will print to cover any and all shortfalls in entitlement programs, which is unsurprisingly what most HI advocates like to do. You also seem to be assuming a deflationary process is not already underway, when it actually is. That’s what job losses, lower incomes, fewer benefits, lower profits/revenues in private/public sector, lower property valuations, lower investment/spending, etc. means – deflation.
You gotta love how RE must use the TAE forum to get people to vote on his silly DD poll about me, or to read any of his articles on DD for that matter. It reminds me of a friend who crashes in your house for a few days – turning into weeks, turning into months – and using all the stuff you own, while complaining about the type of furniture you have and the size of your kitchen the entire time.
I promised I wouldn’t ban you, RE, if you kept contributing substantive material to the forum, but I didn’t promise I would let you go super-troll ballistic on our cordial site here. Don’t bother posting any threads like this one in the future, because it will be deleted (the current one will be locked soon, then deleted). And, please, don’t insult us by trying to act like this is just some little joke you wanted to pull and have fun with us. It’s demeaning, offensive and counter-productive to our goals here, and you knew all of that before deciding to do it, and did it anyway.
TheTrivium4TW post=2071 wrote: These criminals have their eyes on financial data in real time. They know when the natural collapse draws nigh… and they will pull off an event, the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, to correlate with the collapse of their Ponzi Debt Dollar Tyranny system and the media will report that the correlation was causation.
I don’t believe that is possible for anyone to know, regardless of how much real-time financial data they have streaming in. Complex systems theory teaches us that much. Now, it’s a different thing if the TPTB manufacture a “natural collapse” by, let’s say, floating a rumor about a large banking institution that is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. That would send panic screaming through the markets, and perhaps provide opportunities for the elites to solidify/perfect their mechanisms of control. OTOH, I am confident that many of the elites would never elect for such a strategy, because they have no idea how it will end up for them right now when accounting for all of the inter-related factors out there. Rather, these people are more concerned with keeping everything together with twine and duct tape until they have “adequately” insulated themselves from the fallout (which they cannot predict in advance) and have “post-crisis” plans ready to be deployed on the masses.
NedKelly post=2059 wrote: “I think the people in the street, the multitude of people in the street, silent, with sad eyes, serious faces, which when you looked at those people you understood that everyone understands, all the decent people who were on the verge of making compromises.”
Wow, we have somehow managed to return to the topic of the original post. Amazing.
Ned, you raise a great point with that quote. An important aspect of the man’s suicide/message is the mutual knowledge it garners in those around him, or even those who have heard about it from far away. That was the subject of a post I wrote called, Occupy Movements of Mutual Knowledge.
Triv,
Here’s what happened in this thread, in a nutshell:
I posted my thoughts about the message underlying the Greek man’s suicide – the primary one being that he was correct to analogize L-PAP and the Greek government to a Nazi puppet regime (it was not “loose talk”, as Ambrose said). You then posted a response focusing on how the social engineers use language to control/manipulate (I think it’s safe to say it is your typical area of focus with regards to all/most issues discussed here), and made reference to how I use the word “communism” in an idealized way. I wasn’t really sure where you got that from, but I responded to clarify my thoughts on language and labels.
Naturally, we ended up on the subject of Debt Dollar Tyranny and coordinated conspiracies. You have to understand that, at this point, I am just giving you my casual thoughts about that subject, which have little to do with what I was saying in my original post (which, ironically, was about how the Eurocrats have more malicious intent than Ambrose appears to give them credit for). These are thoughts that have been developed over the course of a few years, and only after I had exposed myself to many different sets of theories and evidence, or lack of evidence, to support them.
It is also ironic that, among I&S and most financial bloggers, I am the one who has taken the most “conspiratorial elite” tone in my writing, and have even devoted multiple article and article series to the validity of those ideas. Indeed, I agree with a good deal of the points you have made in your comments. The only thing I was doing in my responses to you is explaining why I believe we cannot simplify everything that has happened into a box of conspiracy by the elites, not some random or arbitrary decision I have made, but a conclusion I have reached after mulling these things over for a long time.
Then RE jumped in to say that I am arrogant and disrespectful of other peoples’ ideas because of that position, and I should not be calling those ideas hogwash. He, and perhaps you, seem to think the onus has been placed on me to explain exactly why I dismiss the theories of people such as David Icke and Alex Jones (when it comes to climate change/PO, for the latter). I, on the other hand, believe I was simply telling you the conclusions I have already reached about these issues, which have little to do with what I’m writing about in my posts. Therefore, I am not inclined to explain in detail how I have reached those conclusions.
I told you exactly why I want to avoid going into a detailed debate over AGW – it is NOT because I am afraid to confront the flaws in my dogmatic beliefs. You can either trust that I am telling you the truth about that, or not. This is not an “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. It is me being honest with you about where I want to draw the line for myself on this discussion. I draw the line at the point after which I am in a position of making detailed arguments in favor of stuff like AGW, which really has nothing to do with what I’ve been writing about on TAE, and only stirs up emotionally heated discussion that usually turns many readers off.
Other people are free to discuss these things on this thread or any other thread, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so right now. Again, you can either take that at face value, or tell yourself that I am just full of shit and trying to avoid the facts. If you elect for the latter, that’s fine with me. I feel that I have been more than fair in engaging these issues with you, but I have to cut myself off when it gets to the point that I am being requested to provide data/analysis on things that I never intended to discuss in the first place. If I adhered to all such requests, I would never have time to post about the things I want to post about.
All of that being said, I have told RE that I will look at his Geotectonic heat transfer theory and give him my thoughts/issues as it related to AGW. I plan on doing that sometime this week. Aside from that, though, I think my contribution to the conspiracy discussion on this thread has run its course, as well as the constant defense of my writing style, personal character, open-mindedness, empathic ability and sense of respect for others against the assaults of RE/ben, and I do not want to continue going around in circles anymore. Like I said before, though, I think my discussion with you has been quite productive.
It’s amazing to think this thread ended up with others [cough, RE, cough] questioning TAE as a site and talking about launching a poll on my popularity. Joke or no joke, could you imagine yourself ever stooping so low to suggest that, Triv, as a part of an otherwise intellectual discussion about conspiracy narratives? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
