Diogenes Shrugged
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“In other words, low energy profit ratio energy sources cannot sustain a level of complexity necessary to produce them. ”
Another enormous, gem-quality pearl. Superlatives fail me.
Indian nation will return.
I was passing out VHS copies of Aaron Russo’s “Mad as Hell” back in the late 1990s, long before 9/11. His warnings in that video were the same as those in the Jones interview (except for the 9/11 stuff). Russo died in 2007 (some say murdered by the CIA). The clip above is dated 2009 on YouTube, but clearly was produced years before. And yes, that was Alex Jones conducting the interview. If you wish to undermine the credibility of either Russo or Jones, be my guest, but your own credibility also hangs in the balance.
Trivium, excellent post.
Various terms are used in the alternate media to refer to the movers and shakers at the top of the heap (e.g. elites, aristocracy, 1%, TPTB). Your term DMM is really the most accurate one of all, IMO. That might be the first hurdle in bringing awareness to the masses – – get them to start using the same term to describe who’s usurped and rigged the system. Otherwise, a lot of innocent wealthy people might eventually be hung from lamp posts.
You wrote:
“Not one in 100 people comprehends that Rockefeller engineered schooling is operant conditioning to create obeisance to the Debt-Money Monopoly “authorities’” declarations.”Indeed, if I had to name what I thought was the greatest mistake ever made by mankind, it would be allowing the DMM-controlled state to educate our children.
Just the first minute or so:
A little less than halfway through the article, “difficult to function” is highlighted in red and links to another of Nicole’s articles from January 2012. In the final paragraph of that article, she observes that:
“In this instance, we need to emulate the herd animals and cross the river all at once. This is our best hope of achieving a simpler, decentralized future that might be workable, unlike our current industrial paradigm.”
While this is certainly true, I have doubts that the herd in the U.S. is capable of acting in any sort of unison. Many will see the crocodiles in the water and refuse to cross, but most will see no reason to cross in the first place. Most of those attempting to cross will not be able to swim. Worst of all, nearly the entire herd either depends on the croc’s for their existence or thinks the croc’s are necessary somehow for the herd’s wellbeing!
In evolutionary terms, our debt money systems worldwide have set this species up to face a most terrifying set of selective pressures. In many ways, those pressures will favor the rich and powerful, but in other ways, favor those living closest to the land (e.g. “primitives” like the Amazon’s Yanomami). I’m afraid some billions of us are about to try to fit through a keyhole. Hopefully the relative few that make it through will figure out a way to peacefully coexist. If not, may the primitives prevail.
Professor LnL,
At ZeroHedge, you wrote in response to this article:
“The Fed has not lost control as long as it issues the currency. The Fed owns this. All of it. And it has the “Full Faith and Credit” of the Pentagon behind it.”All the Fed owns is increasingly worthless IOUs. The Pentagon cannot change that fact, can it? After all, debts that can’t be repaid won’t be repaid, even at the point of a gun.
Also:
“The only deflation we will ever see will be at the Fed’s discretion, and for it’s benefit,,,at least until the day it’s funny money is rejected. On that day, deflation will be nowhere to be found. On the contrary, green paper will blot out the sunlight.”So you’re saying the Fed will willingly take on more increasingly worthless IOUs? What happens when the bulk of the Fed’s balance sheet consists of non-performing assets? Will it get to the point where the Fed is making loans to farm animals, no longer caring about repayment? In other words, aren’t we already hyperinflated?
When governments hyperinflate the printed money supply, people burn it for heat (Weimar, Zimbabwe). When banks hyperinflate the “money” supply by issuing bad loans, people and institutions default. Either way, a lot of the money vanishes, and that’s deflation.
Earlmardle:
“Give us a list, any list of any length that says, ‘if these things were true I would accept that climate change/global warming was happening.'”I have never indicated that climate change isn’t happening. I have insisted all along that climate change is indeed happening, and cannot ever stop happening. What I have said is that: 1) Climate change is not due to carbon dioxide concentrations, 2) Climate change is primarily due to cyclical changes in the sun, 3) Water vapor is overwhelmingly Earth’s greenhouse gas, 4) Local “climate changes” are deliberately induced via weather modification technologies including chemtrails and HAARP (or similar), and 5) The long-term direction of change toward planetary warming or cooling cannot yet be conclusively determined by science. Up to now, the CO2-warming “science” has reached conclusions based on the political agenda of the bankster-owned governments that finance that “science” because those conclusions are what future funding is predicated upon.
There is literally nothing that could persuade me that CO2 is a consequential greenhouse gas. I could produce a list of reasons why this is, but it’s not the list you requested.
Carbon taxes of any stripe (they’re by no means extinct) are a tool of theft and suppression for the globalists. If you think one-world government and permanent human slavery are good things, feel free to voluntarily contribute as much as you can afford. But I’ll promise you this: the taxes you donate will have absolutely no discernible effect whatsoever on carbon dioxide concentrations. Not that any effect on CO2 would mean anything anyway.
Superb article, Ilargi.
I can’t imagine how it could possibly be the case that readers coming here still don’t get it. Several days ago, Nicole exercised remarkable patience giving in-depth answers to questions and thoughtful reactions to comments following her very long article. It appears that some readers simply refuse to let go of certain misconceptions. Which reminds me of a Bertrand Russell quote:
“Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.”
(A quote that became all the more poignant while reading the inane comments after her article reproduced at ZeroHedge.)
I lost a fortune on my birthday in October 2008. Some 70% of my wealth vanished due to margin calls (stupid me) and subsequent taxes. I’d been listening for years to the wrong pundits, and so searched desperately for somebody who could give me a clue. Late that year, I had a phone conversation with Mish and observed that if the Fed gave me a quadrillion dollars, and I buried it beneath the floor of my basement, it would NOT cause inflation. Mish wholeheartedly agreed with my over-simplified analogy. Right up until the time he expressed deep anti-gun (anti-Second Amendment) sentiments (a shockingly stupid point of view), he was one of my most cherished gurus. But since 2009, nothing, and I mean nothing, has compared with the informed, rational wisdom and insight coming from TAE. I’d still be lost were it not for this website.
That said, Ilargi, you pointed to the flies in Mish’s, Keen’s and Prechter’s ointments thus:
“And Mish doesn’t even seem think the velocity of money is a big factor, if only because it is hard to quantify. We do though. Steve is a good friend, he’s the very future of economics, and a much smarter man than I am, but still, last time I looked, stumbling over the inflation equals rising prices issue (note to self: bring that up next time we meet). Prechter gets it, but believes in abiotic oil, as Nicole just pointed out from across the other room.”
Bravo for all of that, and I completely agree with all of it. But this leads me to tell you why I haven’t contributed to TAE beyond purchasing DVDs. Plainly and simply, I cannot support ANYBODY who champions the global warming / carbon tax scam. I’ve posted here until I’m out of breath regarding climate change, the role of the sun, the criminal misinformation coming from the global warming “scientists” and how geo-engineering is responsible for weather anomalies (e.g. California drought), all to no avail. I regard the global warming / carbon tax scam to be one of the greatest dangers mankind faces, especially in the teeth of ruinous deflation. Carbon dioxide is nothing but plant food. It’s an absolutely insignificant greenhouse gas, and it’s long overdue that you and Nicole back off from pretending to be experts on the matter!
Do with that POV what you will. It is offered with the very best of intentions and highest possible regard for both of you.
ProfessorLnL: Your observations in your first comment nailed it. Well said. One trifling caveat: The corporatists include the banksters, so the controllers of the forbidden city probably aren’t going to be elected officials or bureaucrats.
I respectfully disagree with that part of your second comment regarding Federal Reserve notes. It will take a very long time for people to make the change to barter. Federal Reserve notes (i.e. the paper money in your wallet) is tangible, recognizable, portable, widely accepted, etc. They are not the same as the digital debt money that will soon vanish from existence. They are what remains after the money supply mostly evaporates. Think supply and demand, and be careful about advising soon-to-be-starving people to burn their only remaining source of wealth for heat.
Xingu65: Four things:
Drastic under-collateralization results from the reckless and fraudulent issuance of too much credit, but as the price for the collateral itself falls during deflation … we get draconian under-collateralization? … Desperate under-collateralization?
Thank you, Nicole, for another fantastic article. Always eye-opening and always impressively well-constructed. Nobody, in my opinion, gives a better overarching view.
“When you cannot persuade others to your position, destroy them, their reputation and their standing. Allegations of treason do quite handily. Treason to what?”
T-Bear, I had a mental lapse there, and for just a split second thought you were referring to this:
I’m beginning to wonder if there might be such a thing as “power-mad cow disease” because it seems to be spreading.
The recent Greece-Israel Defense Pact won’t help with the resolution of long-standing prejudices, and might even introduce some new ones. Only two nations now have defense pacts with Israel: the U.S. and Greece. Maybe somebody here can tell me where this is headed now because my crystal ball has gone dark. It’s been making a lot of terrifying noises, though.
If I were a Greek in Greece, I’d want and old SKS and plenty of ammunition in the house. Not for social work; merely for a smidgen of what American gun-owners call “peace of mind.” But then, I’m a sissy when it comes to being totally vulnerable when the ephemeral glint of another world war on the horizon seems to be getting brighter.
Apologies to all for the mere mention of firearms on this website. I realize it isn’t kosher. Maybe the solution to the world’s problems is democracy … cough … ahem ….
Absolutely brilliant analysis. I’m half way through a second viewing already. Nobody does it better, Nicole.
At some point, I’d like to hear the TAE thinking about:
1. Thorium and fusion reactor potential
2. The TPP and other fascist trade treaties
3. The use of firearms as a means of defense.WRT that third point, Nicole rightly stated that a virtue of small, tight communities is their ability to defend themselves from outside forces. Specifically, how is that successfully done if not with firearms?
What a beautiful venue for the interview, too. Many thanks.
John Day:
“My hypothesis is that our shadowy-puppet-masters are practicing the sequential controlled-demolition of human societies as their preferred method to deal with peak oil and global warming.”Wrong, and wrong. The people running the show aren’t losing a wink of sleep over oil, and they -own- the global warming fraud.
Dig deeper. They want the planet for themselves. You don’t have to immediately accept that, but you owe it to yourself to understand what’s being said, and why it’s being said:
https://winteractionables.com/?p=22850
For now, keep it all in the back of your mind. There is no shortage of hard evidence for all of this. And by the way, don’t miss the David Knight (Infowars) video in the comments below that last link. We all have gaps in our understanding. I hope this eventually helps.
Incidentally, there should also be laws separating medicine and state, as well as laws separating agriculture and state. Also, separating national defense and state. Okay, separating justice and state, too.
I’m probably alone in this, but I think the only conceivable function of government that might be deemed legitimate is printing the money supply. But have you noticed? It’s the ONLY function governments no longer perform.
Hey Greeks: you’d be better off using olives and shots of ouzo as money. Lagarde was a bad mommy and you’re not helping yourselves by continuing to live in her basement. Time to act like adults and leave this dysfunctional family before the beatings resume.
Ken Barrows: “… but any country probably wouldn’t be better if faced with the same situation.”
That situation, in my opinion, is a dis-infomed populace. There should be laws separating media and state, just as there are laws separating church and state. Assuming you’re going to have a state at all, that is.
Raleigh: “It’s why you should never hand over your pension money to others. You want to be free, you live within your means and you look after your own money.”
My gosh how I wish I could have heard (and heeded) your advice forty years ago. So much time and effort to generate scraps of surplus to invest, only to find over and over again that it’s disappeared to support incompetent or dishonest men. This entire species needs to take a hard look at trust. Is it merely coincidence that the people with the most power and wealth are often the least trustworthy? Economies of scale benefit everybody, but not if those benefits accrue solely to those with say-so.
The world is giving me PTSD, and I’ve never even been in the military.
An interesting half-hour interview of Dmitry Orlov by Pete Santilli via Skype yesterday:
How can the quality of electronic communications be so flawed in an era of advanced electronics? The Santilli Skype and Google translation from Greek (above) make me wonder. It’s certainly not for want of lots of expensive equipment. Anyway, Dmitry said things I hadn’t realized before and I was glad to have run across the interview.
Martin Armstrong has a different assessment (very short blurb).
All of his articles today are pertinent.Back in the 1990’s, Aaron Russo was close friends with Nick Rockefeller. He asked why, with all their money and power, they pursued more of both with such zeal. After all, what was the point? What was the goal? Rockefeller told him the ultimate goal was to get everybody on the planet chipped. That would give the elites absolute control.
First two minutes:
Chipping everybody would certainly be easier to accomplish if their designs on radical population reduction, for one thing, were achieved. Or maybe you think those nice people at the top will change their minds if enough angry people march in the streets. They command the world’s police and militaries (mercenaries, all), knuckleheads. Are you daft?
Remember Bush senior back in the early 1990’s telling us confidently and smugly about how the NWO would eventually be instituted? Were you as disturbed as I was at his self-assuredness? Still at a loss to explain that smug confidence? Still hope he was mistaken?
Ilargi: About that charitable fund you set up to help Greeks. I recommend you purchase as many old, cheap Russian sniper rifles from WWII as you possibly can, and plenty of ammunition. I know you’ll scoff. But I’d bet more than you have in your fund that you’ll someday realize, in retrospect, that it would have been the only sensible thing to have done. After all, five or six grand will only support *one* Greek family for a month or two. Or not even a week once the shelves go bare. Pensions? Don’t make me laugh. Sure, with plenty of caviar.
The last impediment to total, permanent, worldwide economic dictatorship is American gun owners. If the American gun owner is eradicated, as looks to be the objective of Jade Helm, then I hope you’ll be happy with your chip. No more plastic cards, no more checking out at Walmart, no more elections, no more jury duty, no more free speech, no more personal opinions or important decisions. For a cursory glimpse at what this utopian paradise will look like, look no further than North Korea. Everybody smiling because it’s REQUIRED. Enjoy!
In Greece, the uppity ones will soon be dead. Long live the Euro.
I read Ilargi for information, perspective and entertainment. I read Nicole for wisdom. For instance:
“Changes in finance, which is largely virtual, happen far more quickly than changes in the real economy.”
Confirming that “black swans” happen in finance first, economies second?
I agree with everything here save one thing. I don’t agree that there is a correlation between “longest streaks without a 1% move” and major downturns. In fact, the chart seems to presage an uptrend – – the only major change in trend on the chart – – after the 1993 and 1994 “streaks,” but still I doubt that there was a correlation.
Rather than reflecting complacency, I suspect these streaks reflect uncertainty about future liquidity. Kind of like how the appearance of complacency in “the hand slap game” masks underlying uncertainty.
Even a blind man knows when the initial ascent of the roller coaster turns convincingly downward, affirmed by the mounting screams. It soon becomes clear to all that there is no turning back.
I think we’re beginning to hear the screams.
T-Bear: Recognize that this is just a comment section – – a chat room – – and Ilargi allows all viewpoints here. Comments rarely stick to Ilargi’s topic in any rigorous way, so why the vituperative attacks? You’re not looking smart. A smart reader skips the commenters he doesn’t like and spends his time more wisely. Quit taking yourself so seriously, take a deep breath and give it a rest. I, for one, will be skipping your comments in the future if you keep wasting my time.
Martin Armstrong wrote an article today that nicely supports Nicole’s comment, but from a slightly different angle.
Sorry, my error. That Russo interview took place sometime between 2003 (when the Iraq war started) and 2007, when Russo died.
I’m reminded of a scene from the Clint Eastwood movie “Unforgiven.”
Replace the word “deserve” with the word “democracy” and imagine Greece (Eastwood) properly concluding its relationship with the Euro (Hackman).
Democracy’s got nothing to do with it.
Aaron Russo talking to Alex Jones back in 1999 (watch just over three minutes – – until the subject changes to the Federal Reserve):
Quoting Alex Jones:
“In a constitutional republic, a minority is protected against the majority.”Quoting Russo:
“You hear George Bush saying ‘democracy means freedom.’ No, ‘Democracy’ equals New World Order. Democracy equals slavery. Democracy is not synonymous with freedom. It’s the opposite of freedom. Democracy is the worst form of government you can have because it’s majority rule, and the government can tell you exactly what they want you to do (ostensibly) because ‘the majority wants it.'”I added the word ‘ostensibly’ because it’s no longer possible to sort truth from lies when politicians make claims about support for something.
By the way, front to back, that interview is worth every minute.
Want evidence that man deliberately monkeys with the weather? Keep in mind that you don’t have to change global climate to induce droughts, etc.
Pacific ocean dying? Where are the 98% of scientists when they’re actually needed?
The principal climate-change argument, which incidentally has nothing to do with climate science itself, appears to be just another fraud. “98% of scientists,” it turns out, also includes the deniers! Here are four minutes of Congressional testimony from the lead scientist on NASA’s “best instrument for monitoring that decrease in arctic sea ice.”
He’s testifying in front of the very same Senator who just days ago called for prosecution of AGW skeptics under RICO.
Warmists are bulletproof against facts and reason. Their dogmatic “opinions” have little to do with science and everything to do with funding.
“And before you know what hit you, it turns into something like the climate change ‘debate’: just because a handful of ‘experts’ deny what’s right in front of their faces as tens of thousands of scientists do not, doesn’t mean there’s a valid discussion there.”
Wrong. Climate science is never “settled,” as that would be antithetical to science itself. And the discussion is always valid, especially when deep pockets make plans to inject albedo-enhancing sprays into the stratosphere to permanently reduce solar radiation (the same solar radiation that makes solar panels and photosynthesis work, by the way). Give me a break – – that could backfire and kill us all – – and you just accept it because somebody claimed popular consensus in the “scientific community?” The notion that most scientists agree with Al Gore is pure propaganda. SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED BY POLLING, and what a geologist or virologist thinks about climate change is as irrelevant as what an electrician thinks about brain surgery.
You know, Ilargi, if you could just look objectively at the climate change evidence yourself without all the myths, propaganda and ad-hominems, you’d realize that this issue is the only one standing in your way of being right about EVERYTHING you write about.
Again, why on Earth are you such a fan of the carbon tax frauds? After all, as Martin Armstrong repeatedly stresses, rising taxes will be the single greatest impediment to economic recovery and human freedom going forward.
I recommend to all here that Nicole has adopted the only reasonable stance on climate change. It’s not going to affect us in the near term, and the other perils at our doorstep are monsters. Let’s focus on the monsters and address dubious threats predicted for the distant future AFTER the monsters are dead.
Diablo,
The hypothetical choice I proposed between free markets and government was merely a thought experiment designed to make a point. I think you missed my point.
Paraphrasing your response, you appear to say free markets don’t work without government, but government is why we don’t have free markets. So now I’m unclear on what your own point was. Governments everywhere and always are crime syndicates predicated on theft for their very existence. Here is what “rule of law” looks like these days:
https://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/06/systemic-corruption-has-destroyed-america.html
If you sell your lawn mower to a neighbor for a price you both willingly agree to, you’ve generated a transaction in an “Ayn Rand level” free market, plain and simple. No government was needed to make that transaction. If your neighbor takes the mower home but his check bounces, which recourse would you choose:
1. You call the cops. They’ll tell you there’s not much they can do at this point. You take the loss and move on. On the other hand, maybe they come and rough-up your neighbor, maybe shoot his dog and maybe even shoot him. You get interviewed, go to court, waste time and money in the legal system, and maybe or maybe not get your mower back.
2. You endure “buyer beware” the hard way and learn the lesson. From now on, no more deals with that neighbor, and only cash-on-the-barrel-head from now on. You can also tell your story to your other neighbors. You realize calling the cops is unlikely to be constructive.My point here is that free markets already flourish worldwide in the total absence of government. Yes, there is theft and fraud, but mankind would perish in a week if nobody felt he could trust his counter-party. I’ve purchased hundreds of items on Amazon without a hitch. In the very rare instances where there was a hitch, the vendor bent over backwards to either make things right or provide a refund. No “rule of law” was needed for this level of cooperation, and that level of cooperation occurs not because of the threat of government force, but entirely due to free market incentives.
Free markets are ubiquitous worldwide in spite of all the ways governments undermine them. “A social contract that is solid, understood, and vigorously enforced, whatever it is or however you do that” is pie-in-the-sky idealism that cannot work as long as some people adopt theft as a business model. And nowhere is that business model more embraced than within the halls of government.
rapier,
I should probably begin by pointing out that rigged markets cannot persist for long without government support. Assuming you agree with that, let’s pretend you had to make a choice between free markets or government. One or the other, but not both. In the present political environment, it’s a choice between freedom and fascism. David Stockman chose wisely, and with a little thought, I trust you would, too. Ideology has absolutely nothing to do with it. Theft is a business model, not an ideology.
Wow. Just look at Iran (chart above titled “A New Elite”). That’s sure to strike TERROR in the hearts of MSM sycophants and MIC bootlickers.
https://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf
Supplemental to Ilargi’s concluding link:
I, for one, will be memorializing OTHER THINGS than most Americans tomorrow (Memorial Day).
Ilargi, where did you learn to write like that? I almost feel like I’ve been reading poetry.
We know from previous centuries the horrors of too much church influence on government. Now we witness the horrors of too much corporate influence, especially bank influence. Rather than calling for a hard separation between bank and state, though, might humanity not be better off nationalizing the central banks and running them the way state banks are run in North Dakota?
When I read the word “reforms,” I always wonder who they’re intending to rob now. Current political and economic systems are designed to perpetuate the flow of wealth upward, and it looks to me like Draghi’s reforms would maintain the direction of that flow. Until reforms are proposed that clearly reverse that direction, the world will continue to sail into hell. I’m not holding my breath for a voluntary change of course.
Draghi would do well to remember that the Madame Defarges of Europe aren’t about to give up their knitting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Defarge
Excellent observations, Ilargi. Very much appreciated.
Coincidental that we posted our comments within a minute of each other. Except that it wasn’t 5:53 am here, but rather 11:53 pm. (Colorado).
This is an extremely valuable website. Many thanks indeed for what is clearly an awful lot of care and effort.
Thanks Patricia. Exactly the sort of admonishment I was wondering whether or not I deserved. If you understood the content where I was unable to, hats off to you.
Some personal opinions here that will certainly ruffle feathers. I’m not an economist, so I’m eagerly looking forward to being told where I’m wrong.
Despite some valid points, I thought the Steve Keen video was just awful. The first half is opaque (I literally spent an hour starting and stopping, taking notes, trying to find math sense in his verbal equations – – without much success, and with a lot of flat disagreement. The second half was better, but still a disappointment.
Allow me to LOOSELY paraphrase the first half of his talk:
In practice, most people behave as if greed is good. Like it or not, to one extent or another, Gordon Gekko was speaking for nearly everybody (my words, not Keen’s).
Keen, it seems to me, is saying that greed leads to financial overshoot when the business cycle tops out. Incompetence and fraud are taken in stride when the economy is rising, but are ruinous on the way down.
In the second half, he correctly excoriates Paul Samuelson, whose economics text tortured university students with falsehoods for decades. I know firsthand, as I personally suffered that crap nearly a half-century ago. Nonetheless, I found Keen’s talk bothersome, as it was just as difficult to follow his technical mumbo-jumbo as it was to follow economics lectures from my professors back then.
He indicated that there are three ways to get out of a macro debt bubble: inflation, default (deflation), and heavy government spending. I don’t at all agree with that third option, but then he offered yet a fourth alternative in the form of a personal recommendation: debt jubilee. And that brings me to the reasons I so disliked that presentation.
He said that central banks could basically credit EVERYBODY a set stack of cash with the mandatory requirement that it be used to pay down debt before any other possible application. I presume that he assumes that the amount of debt thus extinguished will roughly equal the amount of cash added to the economy – – all in the form of central bank “credits” – – and thus would NOT significantly affect the total money supply.
Here’s why I have problems with that. First of all, the credits handed to everybody would have to equal the extinguished private debt to leave the overall money supply unaffected. But many debts are large enough that much of the private debt would remain unpaid, so the total money supply would actually balloon. Second, I assume these central bank “credits” are produced out of thin air and disseminated like a helicopter drop (figuratively speaking). Being credits, they have to be repaid, don’t they? Even if those credits are issued interest-free, they will inevitably be used as collateral backing a renewed round of leverage. Doesn’t that just perpetuate the scandalous role of central banks? Third, regardless of how successful a debt jubilee turned out to be, and regardless of restrictions placed on banks afterward, the re-ignition of private borrowing would commence immediately, leading once again to the same situation we face today.
Finally, nothing Keen advocated with respect to debt jubilee is politically feasible. It’s as “Cinderella” as the thinking of the “Samuelsonites” running the central banks, but without their power. I think he would have been better off advocating for a free-market transition to public banking, as advocated by Ellen Brown, preferably before the inevitable deflation.
I still think Nicole Foss, Ellen Brown and Karl Denninger are among the best “economists” out there.
Ilargi, you’re brilliant. That Shorpy photo at the top positively shouts the solution. Abolish child labor laws (including minimum wage) and thus bring U.S. wages back into parity with Chinese slave labor! No more exporting of jobs to China! (Those kids will literally work for peanuts.) A new, youthful source of income taxes to breathe life back into social programs for retired people! Zero unemployment for the under-21 set! A win-win for everybody! 😉
Had Obama, the top supporter of Ukrainian Nazis, announced any desire to attend the 70th anniversary parade in Moscow, Putin would have been justified refusing him. Not only did Obama avoid that potential embarrassment, he also helped preserve the shocking ignorance of dumbed-down Americans on the subject of WWII. Shameful, but politically deft. (Or daft if you’re educated or Russian.)
Ken,
Everybody, including my fellow “deniers,” agrees that climate changes continuously and always. As to whether “the change” is in the direction of warming or cooling, it depends on how long a time period is being considered, as well as WHICH time period is considered. Fifteen years is clearly too short a time to declare a trend, especially when such a trend is cynically extrapolated to the end of the century.
If the polar ice caps are growing, where are “rising sea level” waters coming from? Are sea levels authentically rising? There has been a lot of proven fraud surrounding global warming data. Why would you trust data showing a couple millimeters of sea level rise? More importantly, why would you consider a couple millimeters of rising sea level to portend catastrophe?
Carbon dioxide is ultimately what keeps us all alive. Sunlight + CO2 + H20 yields the bulk of the weight of the carbs, fats and proteins in plants, and those support the higher organisms that eat the plants. Increasing CO2 causes an increase in plant biomass. Increasing CO2 is a good thing, and at the concentrations we’re talking about, CO2 verifiably exerts a negligible greenhouse effect compared with water vapor. CO2 will be emitted into the atmosphere “infinitely” whether we burn fossil fuels or not (due to volcanoes, bacterial decay, flatulence, termites, Chinese coal, fires, etc.)
The sun cycles, and is obviously responsible for essentially all of Earth’s warmth. All climate models invariably fail to adequately account for that input.
The “vast consensus” you speak of is, and always has been, fictional. The science was never “settled” except in the minds of non-scientists listening to government-subsidized lies in the mainstream media. Just as you don’t hear about the teeming throngs of architects and engineers who’ve claimed for nearly fourteen years that the Twin Towers were professionally demolished, you don’t hear about the teeming (and growing) number of scientists calling “global warming” a fraud. Too much money involved, mostly extorted through taxes – – by governments that were bought and paid for by the elites – – to admit the truth to the public at this point. Indeed, the global warming industry has become “too big to fail.” For the “Warmists” it’s a “green” religion, complete with a government-inspired “us versus them” divide-and-conquer mindset. Some Warmists actually call for heretics like me to be punished. That isn’t science, it’s politics. Politics is lies. Why do you suppose Al Gore is still the movement’s mascot?
But none of that accounts for my stridency here. Global warming is first and foremost a tax scam, plain and simple. All the carbon taxes, credits, and other governmental shenanigans in the world will never put a dent in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. That money goes primarily into the pockets of the 1% – – the same elites we all rightly object to for so many other reasons. For the life of me, I cannot understand why impoverished taxpayers all over the world self-righteously beg for higher taxes and absolutely unaffordable changes to our means of transport. Especially when those taxes will achieve nothing beneficial except for those in on the scam.
Finally, as I’ve pointed out many times before, mankind is indeed monkeying with the climate via radio waves (e.g. HAARP) and chemtrails. Those massive and growing programs are kept secret by the same governments that try to blame the public for climate change (with the CO2 nonsense). If you’re actually concerned with climate change, I would suggest starting there because hydrocarbons have nothing to do with it.
Not venting, just an intellectually honest rejoinder to your concerns.
The intended humor in the last article relies on readers being misinformed (or more accurately, hoodwinked).
When you allow, and even encourage parasitic narcissists and criminal psychopaths to build colossal empires with stolen money, it should come as no surprise if they begin to see you as competition when the money runs out. So they squeeze out every drop of blood they can before casting your empty husk to the wind.
In nature, parasites tend to prey on other species, so perhaps our parasitic politicians and elites would be more accurately called “cannibals.” But hey, the media love them dearly, so let’s call them “celebrity cannibals.”
They’ve made no secret of the fact that radical, worldwide depopulation is their ultimate stepping stone to total planetary control (i.e. “globalism” or “NWO”). Not that burgeoning human populations aren’t a tragedy, especially for all the other species we live in such extreme disharmony with. But most of us weren’t consulted when the elites drew up their plans establishing who would survive their proposed die-offs.
Which raises the question of who will prevail, the parasites or the hosts?
Either way, the status quo will rapidly reestablish itself. From that most libertarian of documents, the Declaration of Independence: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …” At least, right up to the point that that consent no longer appears necessary. So you see, as long as anarchism is frowned upon, and as long as some people adopt THEFT as their business model, the cannibals will always have an elevated niche to occupy in the human biome.
