boilingfrog
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It always strikes me as so odd that the same people that are so militantly “Non-binary” on certain issues …can simultaneously be so absolutely militantly “Binary” on other issues…but I guess that’s the nature of our species.
It has been curious, though, to bring this “observation” up in conversation however.
We are a selectively rational species, it would seem…
Whoever fights monsters
should see to it that in the
process he does not become
a monster
Friedrich Nietzsche@ Dr D Rich:
(D) All of the above
Another question:
How do pharmaceutical companies promote their products?
(A) ‘Savvy’ marketing
(B) Control of research agendas and journals
(C) Incentivize the medical professionals, and institutions that more-and-more control said professionals
(D) All of the aboveNot to minimize the horrible behavior and suffering occurring in so many places around the world right now, but I had a question…
It seems to me that when an empire peaks and then loses its ‘reserve currency’ status (hegemonic) there is normally great upheaval and violence and bloodshed. Would it be fair to say that Britain did not seem to suffer this fate as the world transitioned from them to the the United Stares because they became a ‘special partner’ with the US?
I’m just perplexed looking at their (“our”?) behavior, in so many ways, at this moment in time and this is all I can come up with…(though I know some feel that London is really ‘running the show’, too.) America + Britain, joined at the hip and ‘fighting’ to the last?
Given the behaviors of the West at this moment it’s difficult to not believe that the underlying financial structures are far, far weaker than we are led to believe. It occurs to me that Raul (and Nicole) long ago transitioned from focus on the energy (The Oil Drum) to finance because finance was a better look/signifier into future ‘behavior’ of systems.
(Professors Hudson and Desai’s conversations over at Yves site seem particularly on point, too)
Dr D’s welfare comment brought to mind a story my now 80+ year old uncle once told me. As a young graduate he was hired to teach special education students in the north shore of Lake Michigan suburbs above Chicago. For those who’ve never visited, very swanky (think the family home in Home Alone or the Ferrari garage scene in Ferris Buellers Day Off).
He and his young wife rented a small ‘carriage house’ in which to live. Their new landlord asked him what he did for a living to which he replied, “I’m a special education teacher” to which she replied, “Oh. Well we don’t have THOSE types around here!”
[This same woman also most certainly thought she had ‘earned’ her lifestyle and that she was the beneficiary of no welfare or uneven benefits from the state, as well]
Such willful blindness…
Another family member from the same area recently asked me in earnest, “Where are the wise voices? Where are the prophets?”
I replied, “They’ve been jailed (Assange), de-platformed, de-financialized, marginalized, had their content ‘moderated’ or have died”.
It seems some folks are realizing the story they’ve been told is no longer matching the world they see about them.
Stay safe Illargi!
Just wanted to say that I very much appreciated the “conversation” you all had in yesterday’s comments (w a nod to Phoenix for kind of initiating). I don’t have the mental horsepower to engage, but sure do like observing those who do and having my thinking expanded.
Currently doing some remodel work for an architecture professor and happened to read some papers she had on-site. To me, gibberish.
Full of terms and labels that had no meaning and were often created by the author. And then responses which just spun into even deeper gibberish as words had lost all meaning, twisted and contorted like a lump of clay. Made me think of our politics: “faith-based”.Defining terms, and sticking to those terms, is the only possible way to have anything that might be considered a “conversation” about ideas (or, imagination, as Greer dicusses), so these efforts on TAE are very much appreciated.
For me, personally, it gives a sense of understanding (and false sense of “order”, or at least “control”?) and that is important for two reasons: (1) my mind seems to need that at a purely intellectual level, and (2) I try to position my sorry-ass for the various potential futures we face…intellectually, emotionally and physically (a ‘crash now and avoid the rush’ type of thing, I guess).
Am sorry I can’t really include anything substantial to the arguments and discussions, but did want you all to know there’s a wider audience out here appreciating your thoughts from around the world (and Illargi’s heroic efforts).
Time to let the chickens out…
The photo of Von der Leyen and whoever are just a few brush strokes of make-up away from looking like the clownish government “leaders” from the capital city Pan (great choice of name by the author, btw) in The Hunger Games.
Perfect photo to accompany MacGregor
What a wonderful addition! Perfect!!!
As Nicole, among others, said:
“All politics is about moving the resources from the periphery to the center”.
(I see it plain as day here in Appalachia)
I’m still waiting for someone, anyone, to give me a single example of Mr. Trump, from any stage of his life, acting on an idea that was above and beyond his own self-interest… something said or done based upon a higher principal…
Yes, I thought it was Jesus, too, good drawing but man it is so easy to ask the computer to do that sort of thing nowadays…kinda sad. And here you have magnificence from Durer…from the 1500’s! Amazing! I stop and think of the materials he was working with…in what conditions of lighting, etc…
My money says the WH baggie was dropped by the same person who leaked the Supreme Court briefing…/s
Me and the carpenter I work with have gotten into the habit of using the same phrases the powerful and connected use when something goes wrong or is forgotten: “I don’t recall”, or “I’m not certain but…” or “I can’t be certain, but…”
Great fun and adds a lot of humor during the day. So, to all the folks in DC, keep ’em coming!!
I continue to do my best to keep abreast of what’s going on in the world, and this site and comment board is wonderful – thanks all (and really appreciate the writings of DrD).
One seeming contradiction I hear many wrestling with is idea that Russia’s invasion is illegal, immoral and a crime. But how to make sense of the clear goading by Nato et al that came first?
But it’s clearly (to me, at least) a case of referee saw the SECOND punch, and the press focuses on that second punch.
The best analogy I can come up with to clearly explain this to the very few folks who want to discuss is: brandishing a weapon. And brandishing a weapon is a serious crime of provocation which (around here, at least) entitles one to self-defense.
Here in my Appalachian Mountains a friend’s dog killed a neighbor’s cat out in the country. The neighbor brandished a weapon and my friend then pulled a gun leading to a stand-off on the gravel road.
In court (other complications) later the judge said my friend had every right to shoot the brandishing neighbor dead in his tracks.
To my way of thinking that’s what Nato did: brandished a weapon, and got shot.
Helps me ‘clarify’ the events. Now, for the ‘whys’ I fall back to Mr. Hemingway’s words:
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
Yes, I know most here totally get this already, I just thought the analogy might be helpful in a discussion. Maybe.
Wonder where Dr D Rich went…
My vaxxed and boosted neighbor died yesterday. Developed intestinal cancer but treatment delayed because he had blood clots in both lungs and a leg. Healthy, active…we’ll never know for certain if there was a link. Definitely suspicious.
Interesting that the Feds can’t seem to find Epstein’s John’s or who leaked at the Supreme court docs though. I’ll sleep better knowing this 21 year old 007 is in solitary, maybe Belmarsh
Yeah, the speechwriter in Poland really hit one “out of the park”, didn’t they? Must have been really proud of themselves for that little piece of wordsmithery. Now they’ll pick up a gun and head east, right?
So tired of the extortionist-type talk, though… we heard that in 2008-2009, 2019, etc with regard to finance: “We MUST save ‘The System’ or we’re all gonna die!” A system the financial powers constructed and profit from…sucking the rest of the economy dry. News flash, a lot of us non-Groton, non-Harvard, non-Wharton, non-Tesla driving folks are already dying.
We’re hearing it now with Nato and “The West”: must save ‘The System’ as it exists, or our ‘way of life’ is over!”. Fully agree, DrD, it’s already ‘over’ and once again due to our own behavior.
Soon I anticipate hearing it echoing out of the gilded halls of over-priced, over-administered, over country-clubbed, over-luxury apartmented, under-contented higher education: you MUST ‘save’ us or ALL knowledge is over and done! WE are the key to knowledge, and ONLY we hold the key! There was no knowledge before us and there’ll be no knowledge if we are diminished…
Hogwash.
It is a closed system, and ‘we’ hid that from ourselves with credit and detached from reality schemes (derivatives of reality?). As the pie seemingly shrinks people are getting out the knives and turning on the person sitting next to them in an attempt to keep ‘their share’.
Interesting talk on God/The Source recently. Enjoyed hearing firsthand input from across the spectrum, and physical world. Phoenixvoice, I agree that some of these words have become “snarl” words, in the parlance of Greer.
More irony… Trump is arraigned for falsifying the books, but years ago Federal Accounting Standards Board made rule changes that allowed financial institutions to “Mark To Model (‘make believe’?) instead of Mark to Market.
All good till folks want their money…
Clown world continues unabated…
The view from Foreign Affairs magazine, FYI:
The Russia That Might Have Been
How Moscow Squandered Its Power and Influence. By Alexander Gabuev
March 13, 2023“In the 12 months since Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, the war has turned into an accelerating disaster for Russia. Although Ukrainians are the primary victims of the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression, the war has already left hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers dead or wounded. Unprecedented Western sanctions have squeezed the Russian economy, and Moscow’s large-scale mobilization and wartime crackdown on civil society have caused hundreds of thousands of the country’s high-skilled workers to flee abroad. Yet the greatest long-term cost of the war to Russia may be in permanently foreclosing the promise of Russia occupying a peaceful and prosperous place in the twenty-first-century world order.”
In the “old days” the mantra for pollution was “dilution is the solution”.
Then we discovered that the bad stuff simply concentrated…like the belly fat we used to cut out of the salmon outside of Waukegan (IL) harbor – that was where we were told it concentrated (in the days of science).
All these folks chanting “we must save the system!” are stuck in the old dilution/solution model.
The risks, the downsides, the pain at every level is simply concentrated and hidden away.
The ‘leaders’, the unproductive parasites, get to take mulligans while the proles once again get the shaft (to mix up some metaphors).
@ Dr D Rich,
Thank you for taking the time to respond and clarify.
Between swinging a hammer all day to pay the mortgage, and taking care of the chickens and goats, I find myself unable to do deep dives on every issue. The Turley piece caught my attention, so appreciate the further thoughts I can mix in with my own.
It’s amazing and humbling the breadth of knowledge, experiences and subjects covered in the comment section at TAE. Wonderful. And from all over the world.
Another debilitating stroke in a healthy 41 year old just outside “my circle”. The neighbor with three blood clots hanging in…another guy with the gas company still on disability w blood clots in his leg. A friend in town moved her 93 year old mother here, but left her accounts at SVB. These “events” affect us all the way down here in the “hollers” of Appalachia…
Dr. D Rich, if you have the patience and time, I’d be very curious to hear you ‘flesh out’ your remarks on Turley, Chansley… a bit more. I’m not quite understanding what you’re trying to communicate – but would like to…thank you.
I keep coming back to, with just about everything mentioned on TAE and pretty much our world, the disconnection between ‘actions’ and ‘consequences’. Power, in one flavor, is the ability to make this disconnection occur. Silicon Valley Bank will be just the latest example to watch.
Living in a small town with a large ‘research’ university, I have long seen professors float higher and higher, disconnected from the ‘real’…and occasionally their tether to the ‘earth’ snaps like a kite string.
No wonder the young folks I know are struggling…cognitive dissonance seems to pervade everything.
I feel blessed to be poor and work for a living…
Apropos of nothing, I suppose, but it seems FedEx pilots are looking for a bump in pay and pension, using inflation as a partial explanation.
It’ll be interesting to see how the white house handles THIS transportation issue if a strike actually does threaten. (From a very recent union message):
“The central issue is the Company’s belief that FedEx pilot pay rates do not need to be competitive within the airline industry. In fact, the Company negotiators insist that we should look no further than the pay rate at UPS, ignoring the obvious flaw of comparing the UPS single pay rate to our narrow body pay. The other flaws in the Company narrative are too many to list, but we can share a few of our unambiguous responses:
The pension improvement was long overdue and should not be at the expense of our pay.
Through extensive surveys, pilots have been consistent with three priorities. Pay is only second to retirement on that list.
We have experienced record-setting inflation during the past two years that impacts pay rate expectations.
Our pay rates have trailed the airline industry and the UPS rate dating back to 2016.
The current Company proposal exceeds the UPS rate only intermittently (3 months out of every 12) until July 2026, at which point our widebody pay rate would pass the UPS rate.
The week concluded with each party providing a term sheet proposal. In general, the week was frustrating due to the Company’s refusal to make a defining move despite our repeated cautions that the latest Company proposal would not be ratified by our pilots under any condition, let alone approved by the MEC.”
Well Red,
It’s time to pick up my tool belt and head to the job. However, I did bookmark and will finish later, ty.
I spent a few years in the print side of publishing, educational primarily (Silver Burdette Ginn, Macmillan, HBJ, Scott Foresman…). We were caught of guard when our ‘buyers’, folks who understood printing, screens, 4c process, and basis weights and all that, were let go for ‘inventory specialists’, who had zero knowledge of the process. That was in the 80’s.This change you speak of is so much worse…so glad I switched “games”, but nice to have this info.
Additionally from NYT:
“Norfolk Southern, which earned more than $3 billion last year, invested close to $2 billion in its railways and operations, up a third from 2021. But over the past five years, it paid shareholders nearly $18 billion through stock buybacks and dividends — twice as much as the amount it invested in its railways and operations. Other large railways have paid out billions to their shareholders, too, and their shares have done better than the wider stock market over the last decade”
From the NYT:
“The rate of accidents on Norfolk Southern’s railway increased in each of the last four years, according to a recent company presentation. The record has worsened as executives at Norfolk Southern and other railroads have been telling investors on Wall Street that they can bolster their profit margins by keeping a lid on costs. At the same time, railway companies have lobbied against new rules aimed at making trains safer.”
The private sector is the answer!
The government is the answer!No, accountability is the answer…
Keep hearing the sucking sound as “private equity” takes over entities, sucks them dry of cash and a future, and leaves the drying shell to swing in the breeze.
Untold bankruptcies, often blamed on unions; Boeing cutting corners to kill hundreds (board of directors and major shareholders); CNN just ran a story on p.e. buying up ER doc practices and replacing costly docs with physician’s assistants; ad nauseum.
And now “the” train derailment. Slap on the wrist and continue the push to (1) cut crews and (2) lengthen trains. “Hot box” specialists cost too much money, dammit!
Take the money without the risk, without the liability.
Won’t go on forever and history shows us that with certainly.
And then it REALLY gets ugly
Germ, thank you for bringing that Newsweek opinion piece to my (our) attention. That young man writes clarity and scalpel-sharpness. A bunch of what he speaks to could quite easily be extended to other areas of our world today.
I just had this mask conversation, again, with my brother. Masks, again, at their pre-school…masks, once again, in the facility my father lives in. Except, not in individual rooms, not in game rooms, not while seated in dining hall, and don’t bother to try and mask the dementia-addled (dad) nor folks stumbling about with walkers and candles.
The staff, masked, had an attitude like the old Soviets: ‘We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us’. Instead, ‘we pretend to wear makes, management pretend to believe these rules make a difference’. See how safe we are!?
The thought creeping up from deep within is: What are we missing?
I remember ‘seeing’ the crash of 2008 coming (thanks Illargi, Nicole, others…) but NEVER saw “QE” happening, especially to this extent. I didn’t go far enough back in economic history to read about the adventures of John Law, I guess.
So, they must have a plan…they have too many consultants, think tanks, white papers, “blue sky” meetings, NOT to have something…
Remember, “We’re going to supply liquidity JUST so, and until, the economy can reach ‘escape velocity’ and starts to grow again.
Escape Velocity…sigh…how quaint it all seems now…
I guess we should all be boycotting Delta, tearing down their terminals and such, because they were once sexist and misogynist, eh? /sarc
(I’m not throwing THAT first stone, too busy trying to get the lig out of my eyeball!!)
Yeah, Rockingham County (Virginia) is up there in the Shenandoah Valley…beautiful country. N-NW of Charlottesville. And I think Salatin’s Polyface Farm is just south of there, too.
I’ve read some of Salatin, but not that piece. Friends who own a meat processing shop have told me about laws put into place to keep them from selling (e.g. a bathroom and changing room dedicated solely to FDA inspectors) to the public. Need to check in and see if this still holds. They can’t afford to jump through the hoops that Smithfield’s lobbyists had installed.
Salatin’s title brings home the point that “legal” is FAR from “ethical” and “moral”, but that’s so obvious it’s not worth spilling ink over.
Well, compared to nuclear war I guess this issue pales, but… avian flu. Allegedly avian flu has been discovered here in Virginia in Rockingham County.
This is a very, very big ‘industry’ in Western Virginia with semi trucks of caged white turkeys and chicken billowing feathers as they move up and down I-81.Perversely, it makes me think of the WEF. The major poultry corporations (I hesitate to call them producers) force farmers who want to participate to strictly follow their protocol, and take on debt and subsequent risk. The truly Al Gore /John Kerry galling hypocrisy comes from the cut-throat competition they foster between these farmers while simultaneously lobbying to create monopolies and eliminate their OWN competition.
These corporations, and the folks running them (corporations ARE people, right Mitt?), are truly psychopathic.
Am wondering if it has over through my free-ranging flock and now the remainder have natural immunity? Either way, I’m sure we’ll have an mRNA “cure” soon/sarc off.
Time for more voting with our feet.
As usual, a ton of good “data points” on TAE (“data points” is a phrase one of my customers, a retired investment banker, likes to say… the same person who when asked about the box canyon the Federal Reserve has flown itself into responds, “They’ll think of something!”).
Being in a university town, the phrase “Stakeholder Capitalism” really caught my eye this morning. I hear the same thing around here. The wealthy ‘stakeholders’, living up on the mountain overlooking the town, or down in the valley by the country club, all think they are in control of events. They all feed at the university trough. As “stakeholders” somehow they can gather the “right” information, create the “right” technology, to bring this experiment in for a successful landing/conclusion.
‘Successful landing’ ALWAYS includes them holding their positions of power and wealth. Always. Others are simply not even considered as they crawl back to their trailers in the “hollers”.
Joggers abound, but I’ve never seen one carrying a Matco toolbox. Nor have I seen a $3000 titanium bicycle with a MIG-welder strapped on back. But “Im’a lookin!!!”
Construction seems to be proliferating: banks, university buildings, and literally hundreds of glue-and-sawdust + plastic homes surrounding the university starting in the mid-$400’s.
Doing what I do (fix houses) I know dozens of Ph.d’s… I can think of exactly one who is open to any alternatives to the CNN and NYT story. One…
Okay, chickens and goats taken care of, back to ‘crashing now’ so as to avoid the rush!
I understand this is simplistic (some here might say reductive) but this mental image helps me navigate the current environment.
Similar to the “It’s turtles all the way down!” story, I see the current era of (a) cheap/free money, and (b) monopolies as creating the incentives for people to lucratively engage in non-productive activities.
The image is a productive worker being more-and-more bowed down as (Black)rocks and (Black)stones are piled on his/her back. These further weights claim to be adding the value of “efficiency”, but that is simply reducing productive employees and forcing those who remain to do more.
Last night I stopped at a big box hardware store for $400 in materials and had to ‘self-checkout’. (Actually, the kid manning that area checked me out because I threatened, nicely, to abandon my cart).
As an independent carpenter, I occasionally buy Festool equipment for the quality. Reduced natural gas to Germany has me re-thinking purchases of German tools. But, more importantly, I had a broken tool and contacted the company and actually got to two real humans. However both told me I had to go online and “create an account” to get service. Sorry, one of the things I expect with higher price is a higher level of service. No more Fein, no more Festool.
I’m not trying to complain here, I’m making an observation, and then “voting with my feet”. I haven’t “quiet quit” yet, but I’m working hard to decrease my dependency and footprint.
Over-administration in academics…over-administration in healthcare, Vax mandates, green energy mandates, war mandates etc
All these ‘rocks’ and ‘stones’ continuing to be piled upon us. (Thanks for the upload info Phoenix!)
I know this is an old question, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to include a small image in my comments. Can anybody offer help?
For the “statistically-impaired” (certainly not mRNA-induced in this case) like myself, Jessica Rose presents what appears to me to be pretty good data analysis.
Anyone care to offer thoughts? Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with anecdotal evidence, but it sure is affirming when such evidence is backed up with data (not PR campaigns)
Thanks RIM (and all the commenters here), my safety rope to bare-feet-on-the-earth sanity these days.
Yesterday was thinking about how people seem to rationalize their (self-serving) beliefs and actions by somehow appealing to a ‘higher good’.
At the university it’s an appeal to “knowledge” that makes every action and behavior appropriate
and acceptable. We must ‘save and expand’ this amorphous thing called ‘knowledge’.In healthcare (term used loosely) it’s the faith in institutions working for the health of all.
At the Federal Reserve it’s ‘saving the system’.
As Z presents to our national leaders, it’s ‘saving freedom and democracy’.
And in every church, as through all history, all actions are tolerated in the name of saving your soul.
Thoreau, for one, wrote of being wary (actually, running from!) the person coming to “help” you…
Stay safe. Thanks to all for your thoughtful contributions (and Dr D, you DON’T ‘write too much’)
Watching President Zelensky present last night, and the PBS discussion afterward, reminded me of a high school football game pep rally.
Except, the people present (a) had no kids in the game, (b) had none of their own money ‘invested’.
Surreal and twisted somehow
Germ’s input much appreciated. To add to the anecdota evidence: one fully vaccinated friend felt ‘really awful’, left work early to take a nap on the couch and never woke. Recently, another active neighbor has been diagnosed with GI cancer, but his treatment has been suspended because of embolisms in both lungs and one leg.
Does anyone here follow Jessica Rose? With doctoral, and post-doctoral work in computational biology and immunology, she seems a natural to be able to sift something out of the “noise” (IF data is provided in relatively good faith)
Well, I’m just muddling along as best I can, doing my ‘low-level’ work here on this planet, leaving the higher level work for another time, I guess. But I do think striving for these things called ‘truth’, and ‘justice’ during our muddling is important.
Michael Hudson has led quite the life, truly amazing. Normally I can digest his pieces in one sitting, but this latest interview is really above and beyond.
Neighbors, and their visitors – all vaxxed and boosted – just came down with Covid. No surprise, I know, for folks here, but surprising to them as Ph.D “scientists” and “believers”. I’m walking a careful path to maintain “neighborhood equanimity”, taking the long view.
So while I read and support TAE, and Greer and attempt to keep up with the Ukrainian ‘issue’, and the ongoing battle for global dominance, etc, the Covid issue is still bubbling in these parts. Passe, I know, but data still percolates out.
I try to cast a wide net when reading, and came across an opinion piece on CNN entitled: “Opinion: We finally have a Covid-19 vaccine for the youngest kids. Here’s why it matters” by “Syra Madad, DHSc, MSc, MCP is an infectious disease epidemiologist”.
But her writing doesn’t make sense to me. She talks of the high rates of kids testing positive, but says have good outcomes, as expected. Malone and Geert vd B say this is a good thing. Then she writes this:
“8,525 children have been reported to have multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a condition associated with Covid-19 in which body parts, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs, can become inflamed.”
But this MIS-C sounds an awful lot like some of the side effects of the vaccine, (like the myocarditis that killed my friend) though her tone suggests to me that she doesn’t believe that’s a possibility.
She talks of wanting her children vaxxed so as not to catch Covid and therefore avoid the possibility of getting ‘long Covid’. Her vaxxed and boosted friend tested positive a month ago, and is suffering from ‘long covid’ (really? a month?! and he was vaxxed? Not the best example for multiple reasons…)
Anyway. I’m kinda bringing up the rear, (in many ways!), greatly enjoying the gathering of news by RIM, and the worldwide feedback (though some might better fit Greer’s second blog). Trying to hold it in mind as I try to make sense – see a pattern – in the events around me. And more importantly, helping guide me as I strive to plot a sensible path forward for myself, and my small community. Thank you all.
