Dr. D
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They’ve played their cards well: “You voted wrong, now go back and vote until you get it right.”
Of course being the Anglos, that would be too obvious, so dragging your feet and screwing everything up until it’s a mess, THEN calling a referendum will make it the people’s fault again. Not their leaders, ‘natch.
On the other hand, take Mish’s option: leave the E.U. tomorrow, pay nothing, clear the market-hobbling uncertainty in days, and make them invade if they want to collect. That may sacrifice some U.K. continental assets, but looks like all that will be in the courts for generations like Jarndyce and Jarndyce, but it’s better than paying AND in court, AND with a vicious ex-wife in your house, so might as well be cut off the sinking ship in the meantime.
Will they do it? No. They have the opposite of the good of the country in mind. The people may not be well-versed, but unlike their leaders at least they’re smart enough to know up from down and good from bad.
Does the U.N. remind you of an extortion racket? Now that it doesn’t look like we’ll pay our bills, they’re looking to give us a black eye. This is after happily signing on to 16 or 37 years of illegal war, having Sudan and Saudi Arabia on the human rights council while S.A. was killing 100,000 civilians in a Yemeni genocide, and, as he says, helpfully offering cholera to Haiti. That is indeed a “fearsome track record.”
He also claims worldwide authority to bring all nations and individuals to heel? To extradite, try, and as recently, de facto execute local politicians in the Hague? Nice try, but we already saw they only the names at the bottom of his checks. That means despite the eyewash they have no authority but what constituent nations tell them to have — or don’t have, as when even today they stand back for the Syrian invasion. 500,000 killed, slavery starting worldwide, and he’s investigating poverty in a nation millions of poor people are fleeing to because of the welfare? Pull the other one, Jack.
The U.N. was after Cuba, China, Iran, Russia, for decades. Do they look bother’ed? Did it do anything but re-route their air traffic? And is Mr. Alston planning to invade the U.S. to enforce himself? To what human rights consequence? With whose army? Ours? Hey, I’ll be thrilled to have any consequences for illegal wars, but if I wanted it done why would I pay them to do it and relinquish sovereignty? He’s raising cash. For an Extortion. Racket. Since he flew in from the Hague for us I’d be happy to open an investigation on him for the U.N.’s crimes…in Cleveland.
So…the U.N. will pay for thousands of refugees to rent flats in Greece. Did they notice they’re evicting thousands of Greeks to do so? If the Greeks fled to Syria or Germany maybe the U.N. would finally help them? Reminds me of yesterday when the economists realized, lo! they needed to help the poor or else their scam would stop working. Great! All I need to do is slip under $1 a day and they’ll help. $2 a day? Hit the road, rich guy.
The U.N.: totally bankrupt in more ways than one.
I’m Glad Morgan Stanley Has Warned Us About Jeremy Corbyn (Ind.)
Britain has a Right-wing press?
US Senate Suspends Tax Bill Votes to Friday Morning (BBG)
A group of moles suddenly shifts sides to obstruct key legislation? It’s almost like they’re not one party and don’t support their own platform.
He pledged the inquiry would not put “capitalism on trial.”
Maybe they should put Australian Capitalism on trial for identity theft.
Gold Trader Implicates Erdogan In US Sanctions Breaking Case (BBC)
Did I miss something here? The U.S. puts a foriegn national on trial for crimes committed outside the country? This means they claim soveriegnty worldwide? …Don’t answer that.
Dreams of power are always costly.
Only if they’re violent. Cooperation is profitable and self-reinforcing. This is why the Silk Road will bury the Anglos. And also why a man once wrote a speech stating, “Harmony, … with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors … forcing nothing. …”nothing is more essential, than that … just and amicable feelings towards all [nations] should be cultivated.”
Oh and P.S.
“avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty…”
“Honesty is the best policy.”
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Farewell_Address
Same: Maybe this is a GOOD thing, because what he’s suggesting is so bad it could never possibly work?
But then his pals will waste a lot of valuable resources stumbling ego-drunk around the maypole.
Doesn’t the VIX look like portfolio insurance in 1987?
What’s more on banning plastics: everybody likes them better. There was a collective sadness when Coke stopped coming in returnable bottles with wooden crates. Even today they are able to sell bottles at a premium, but don’t. Part of the high-end, high-touch market is to wrap things in butcher paper with a string, and people pay extra to go to a farm market with wooden crates, more interesting but perhaps less-perfect produce, and less heat. Ireland banned plastic bags to great relief, so what’s the holdup? A: corporate profits. Every “less” is a loss to GDP, and we’ll die rather than let that happen.
Speaking of, they’re serving microwave meals in the U.K.? That’s possibly the most expensive food in the market. Go to an Indian store and buy rice and dal in a 50# bag with peas from the allotment. I know that’s not the point, but if you’re down your life depends on getting smart. May or Brown won’t help you and if history is any guide Corbyn won’t either.
NATO could of course straighten this out even today.
They won’t.
What does that tell you about how much mass murder and slavery bothers them?
And those removing statues from a slavery ended 152 years ago? Is this their prime issue, or the exact location that bronze may weather?
That tells you how much they care about race, mass murder, and slavery. What will it take?
Strangely, the first money is not an asset but a debt: Lend me your bow and I’ll give you a rabbit. Because, why on earth would you need abstract money? A town of 200 only has you and your cousins. You eat at each other’s houses. To transact in “money” seems rather gauche, doesn’t it?
Yes you’d barter further out because where would you get money, the ATM? Certainly the natives here didn’t bother with it; there were gold nuggets in the streams they never bothered to pick up. Calling every small, standard trade good like beads or copper “money” is pushing the definition a bit, isn’t it? Fur and tobacco? Why not needles, gunpowder, cloth, toys, tinware? Oh wait, that’s everything, isn’t it? In any case, money was neither used, desired, nor missed in native America. Might look into it: it seemed to serve them well.
“Britain Must Accept High Immigration Or Forget Trade Deal With India (BI)”
I’m sorry, India WANTS to send their intelligensia, doctors and engineers out of the country? I somehow doubt it, but if so, Britain would be doing them a favor by not taking them. And India would refuse to buy British products, warplanes, Heinz sauce or whatever else they make if they refuse to steal their doctors? I find that pretty hard to believe. So Luxembourg or New Zealand are required to steal Indian engineers in order to get masala? No. Open New Zealand doesn’t accept anyone and I doubt Luxembourg has the room.
However, that no one respects (any) U.K. minister and ignores them I can heartily believe.
“At its root democracy is quite simple. It is the exercise of political power by the majority over the minority.”
This is why the Founding Fathers feared and despised Democracy. Nor is this hyperbole: most of the Federalist Papers were dedicated to assuring the public that the new United States would be a Republic, NOT a Democracy. At all. Why? Because as the quote above shows, a perfect Democracy is where the 51% can oppress the 49% without limit and without end. A true Democracy? Revolutionary France. Do you like this man? No? Does the crowd here today say off with his head? Yes? Evidence? We don’t need evidence: the will of the people be done. And btw we’ll divide up his palatial estate or his cobbler shop among ourselves on the same premise, and if his daughter ends up in our hands, that’s the way things go.
No. No. No. We are not a Democracy. We never want any Democracies anywhere on earth. We want the rule of Law, not of men, and if the Burning Platform can’t tell the difference, they need to sharpen their language skills.
A Constitutional Republic, as ours is supposed to be, is where the rule of LAW is sacrosanct, and is designed specifically and especially to protect the rights of the MINORITY, believe it or not. You cannot harass the minority (4th Amendment), you cannot suppress the beliefs of the minority (1st Amendment), you cannot silence the minority (1st Amendment), corral them into ghettoes (1st Amendment), interfere in their business (Art. 1 Sec. 10) or steal their property (5th Amendment). Should any attempt be made, they have the right and the means to defend themselves by force (2nd Amendment).
Not that anyone follows the Constitution anymore, or didn’t immediately bend it to their desires (Adams Administration) but this is the goal we are trying to uphold and NOT a rule of the 51%. Why? Our turn toward “Democracy” both in word and belief is the core reason for the shattering of U.S. political life today. Why? If Hillary gets in, a group of people believe she will trample the lives of the 40% Conservatives. And naturally, if Trump gets in, a different group believes he will trample the rights of the 40% of Progressives (20% or more don’t care either way). But how is it that ANY leader or contingent got the authority to trample ANY group? Oh right: that’s Democracy. AND the total erosion of Separation of Powers, due to a 230-year centralization and power grab. True Democracy is Facebook. It’s Twitter. It’s today’s news, having your life destroyed in seconds in the court of public opinion with no due process and no appeal.
But that’s the theory. Please, let us all stop today and reflect on the meaning and deadly peril of true Democracy as our forefathers did. They mapped it out: we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
If only there were some way to track that centa-millions in campaign funds. We should pass a law demanding banks keep “books” of names money going in and out. We should pass a law on this “campaign finance” thing, and have it all tracked, so the voters know where the money comes from and protect democracy from being undermined by bribery and undue influence.
Then we could have the government enforce these honest and open rules on…themselves?
“But since the crisis British performance has been dismal. Although productivity jumped in the third quarter of 2017, prolonged weakness means that it is barely higher than its pre-crisis peak a decade ago.”
Wow, talk about framing expectations. First, markets hate uncertainty. However temporary, any transition — even an openly positive one — is certain to cause a decline. Second, so the economy has been catastrophically weak since they day the U.K. joined the EU? Gee, I think that’s just what we were talking about, yet this writer cleverly makes it sound like both the 10-year slump is caused by Brexit — prophetic Brexit, apparently — but that Brexit is the driver DOWN, while joining the EU 10 years ago was awesome, and who wouldn’t want that? I mean, it only caused the complete stagnation of ALL GDP, in ALL nations except Germany during its entire history, AND crushing Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Ireland, and Eastern Europe to boot. What’s not to like?
Seriously, be careful with words. 10 years stagnation, uh-huh. And look at the next article: this 10 year stagnation put consumers in the Christmas “sweet spot” in 2016. Funny, I don’t remember reading 2016 was a great shopping season, in the U.K. or here. In fact they were quite concerned about itfor some reason.
Brexit Prophesy Disorder I suppose.
I was just looking at that excellent article myself.
How will they survive? In their bunkers or in mountain chalets. They’ve never paid yet in a world war, why worry now? Who will provide for them? Why do you think they put 40 years and trillions of dollars into automation and a robot army? Even food production, picking strawberries, all humanless, all sci-fi. This is why at the last hurdle here, they have billions a year to unemploy drivers, billions for A.I. Stephen Hawking says will kill everyone, billions of subsidies and oversights to bankrupt retail using Amazon, and nothing for 99% of citizens. And the two pillars to insure this automation will happen and ruin humankind are 1) an artificially high labor rate via unproductive insurance and regulation, (Obamacare and the 30h week anyone?) and 2) an artificially low interest rate that makes purchasing human-replacing equipment literally free. This language speaks to 100% of companies, bankrupting anyone who dares continue to employ humans. In the meantime, until we get rid of 4B pesky humans — as advertised regularly, e.g. by Deagal — we give them UBI that requires them to be obedient on pain of bankruptcy and certain starvation. It’s not like they’re hiding it: you can read their white papers on what and how all day long, or the pop versions in “Wired” or articles on the latest from Boston Dynamics. Apparently people love it. They’re happy to support it and participate.
So not to worry: they’ve got it all worked out. …Unless you’re a human, that is. In that case their plan is not so good.
True enough. We have advancing use of it in trouble area like Zimbabwe and Venezuela, but that is different from other economies, perhaps less mature black market, larger in scale or speed, etc.
Also although BTC rose to $14k in the Zimbabwe non-coup, most of the development was before now, when BTC’s fees are reaching $5 and take 24h. We don’t know if that presages abandonment or a flip into LTC, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, or Dash, but it suggests Bitcoin Classic is now better suited to multi-million transactions than a broad public support whose everyday transactions could provide a floor. If that’s the case, then when those rich transactors get disrupted, the demand may fall. Or not. No one yet knows.
“…debt was able to support a rising standard of living..” Crack me up. Yes, when I racked up that $25k in credit card debt it really “supported my standard of living.” Oh wait, it didn’t support anything, it hallowed out and undermined my standard of living, but did allow me to perpetrate a fraud on my family and neighbors ’til the sheriff showed up. How many times do we have to learn debt is not money. Debt is the OPPOSITE of wealth and money.
“The judiciary is the branch of government in the US and other countries that is relatively free of bribery.”
Clearly this gentleman has no experience with the U.S. Judiciary. Justice Roberts or the Citizen United decisions anyone? A 99% Federal conviction rate?
Bitcoin mining cost is not fixed. That is, it’s not the same Bitcoin in 2010 as now. The difficulty of mining, of solving the cryptographic puzzles, becomes wildly harder each year until it is completely impossible and stops at 20M coins. This is by design as the processor speed increases by Moore’s Law, doubling every 2 years. So yes, hopefully it will never be profitable to mine the last Bitcoin except for bragging rights. It’s supposed to be too expensive to bother. And we’re already at the bleeding end of all mining. Keep that in mind when they’re complaining about the eventual cost.
It also occurred to me that the BTC expense is overinflated. They calculate it on the premise that the machines processing it were created and run only for this purpose. However, a lot of the servers, switches, and nodes would be running anyway, just like your own PC and router is mostly on. So you’d have to subtract the standing “on” cost of the whole internet from the dedicated BTC server farms and miners. Granted, it’s a lot, but it’s also not fair to say it costs $20,000 to buy a head of lettuce when you’re going to own the car anyway and drive for a thousand other tasks.
Again, it points out how priceless trust is to human interaction. That’s what gold used to do–another useless token. If we can’t get trust and justice from local interactions under 150 people, we must get it some other way at greater expense.
See the documentaries on the plactic garbage dump on top of Mt. Everest.
Geologically it can be identified as the Plastocene era.
How do they do it? Ask them! They’re just smarter, stronger, and better than the rest of us, coupled with an innate moral superiority. …Or they could have been born on home plate, slip $50 to the Umpire, and claim they hit a home run, you decide.
“President Donald Trump’s tax cut plan, for instance, has been widely criticized for favoring corporations and the wealthy over working families.”
When wealth disparity gets this high tax cuts HAVE to favor the “wealthy.” (Really meaning from $40k to +Million bracket.) Why? Because only this bracket is paying any taxes. Below $40k in the U.S. and you’re on food stamps, and while you’re taxed on health, food, gas, checking accounts, property, autos, fees, mortgages, bailouts, and everything else they can think of, your income tax is a wash. It’s literally impossible to cut income taxes for the poor as they’re already getting Earned Income Credit. Sad part is, Welfare is about a $30-$40k equivalent, while the working poor would be stretched to make $25k with a year’s hard labor. But that’s not the point. The point is, if only the rich pay taxes, and as billionaires and MNC’s pay basically nothing, the few remaining millionaires (translation, “Small businessmen”) pay the most of all. Any tax cut therefore helps the millionaires, i.e. the only taxpayers.
Thus the controversy: does the tax cut favor the rich or does it help relieve and jump-start small business, the creator of over 100% of the new jobs*? Both. That’s how screwed up our system has gotten.
But obviously I hear we need to raise taxes on the “Rich”, every billionaire will again escape them by leaving the country or the hemisphere if necessary. And the poor have no money. So we, i.e. “Government”, composed of well-revealed sock-puppets directed by those self-same billionaires, would — ta da — raise money on the ever-smaller cadre of upper middle class and single millionaire owners, the only threat to their self-serving monopolies, the small and medium business owners. And for the 100th year in a row, the middle class gets smaller. So shocked. But there’s a solution! More of the same.
“That’s where the money is.” –Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks.
*Large business is a job destroyer, buying up small business and laying off in vertical consolidation. Suppose 500K jobs were created in 2016. Small business created 510k, while Large business destroyed 10k. That’s the reason absolutely savaged small business sector can have the weird statistic of creating over 100% of the jobs, while large business is sub-0% job creator. And THAT’S how screwed up our system is now. I could print a book in list form, 1., 2., 3., citing the ways it’s now screwed up, cannibalistic, unworkable, and unsustainable, but I’m preaching to the choir.
I’m sure you’ll be much gratified by the revelation that Antarctic melting appears to be caused by massive recent volcanism. It helps explain why the sheet is melting rapidly in one area, and building rapidly in another. Of course this theory is 20 years old, but after an inconvenient period in university culture, they suddenly remembered all about it.
Yes, their existence is to oppose and obstruct the Logos. It reminds me of John 1:1, “In the beginning was the LOGOS.” And what is “Logos”? Order, law, reason, truth, reality itself? “And the LOGOS was God.”
They fight Logos and create anti-logos every time. That is their religion. And every day I hear, “You worry too much. It’s just a silly word.” You mean like the words we use that define something as legal or illegal, right or wrong, rewarded or punished? Those kinds of words? The kind of word that you keep when you promised to sign someone’s paycheck, where you keep their pension or mortgage paperwork safe?
What a square. Be edgy. Anti-Logos is where it’s at.
“Inequality, however, has deepened even further. Has capitalism failed?”
That’s after the entire article up to that point describing how the government intervened, set prices, covered losses, stopped business cycles, continued with this behavior for generations, and otherwise prevented every functional aspect of “Capitalism”. These guys are going to drive me bananas.
This is like a football game with no football, no goalposts, no pads, the men are using croquet mallets and a chessboard while frolicking on horseback underwater. Whatever that game might be, I can assure you with some confidence that it wouldn’t be football. As with “Neoliberalism”, or even “Keynesianism” which Keynes himself wildly protested several key aspects of the “Keynesianism” espoused and practiced by Bernanke, Yellen, and the gang.
If you hadn’t got the memo, the first thing con-men do to get your money while avoiding work is to bait-and-switch the language to get you invested in the lie and the false reality. That’s why words have meanings. Words like “Inflation”, “Deflation”, “Unemployment” and “Capitalism”. Use them or end up a pauper on the continent your fathers conquered. Too late.
And they didn’t notice or do anything when the Atlantic Cod collapsed a generation ago? Didn’t set up any alarm bells anywhere as all of Atlantic Canada collapsed? Nope. Housing bubble here we come. Didn’t drive off the Chinese trawlers, didn’t start an environmental restoration campaign. And golly, when we did the same thing to the entire pacific–plus possible radioactive destruction of the entire plankton cycle–it collapsed there too, but took longer as the Pacific is larger? Huh. Who’d a thought?
And tomorrow we’ll do the same only harder. As Charles Smith says, there’ll be great prices at the Tokyo Sushi exchange for the last living Atlantic Tuna.
You’re covering the point that Facebook, Google, Amazon, and hey, CitiGroup too, are the only thing left of our economy. However, every one of them is a complete, incredible loser, having never made money and indeed losing billions each year. What is it that Sam Zell said? That the valuation of Amazon requires it to be 25% of U.S. GDP in 5 years? A company that has never made money in 20 years, and it making 18% less this quarter. But they make it up on the volume.
So get the idea right out of your head that it’s “ad revenue” that keeps the companies in business. They’re like 10-20x the size of the whole world ad market, have only pennies of ad revenue, claim more ad clicks than there are demographic persons, yet have no trouble funding themselves. From where? I mean, statistically, there are no retail investors left, only algos, so from where is a company that has no revenue, no business model, no prospects, and is presently being revealed as an overpriced accounting fraud, getting billions and billions of investment a year?
That is, unless it’s really an arm of the intelligence service, setting up corporate power and spying as an end-run around the Constitution and the 4th Amendment. You think? Because there’s no other explanation in my book, and the $500M payout of Amazon from the CIA–which funds Bezos and WaPo–is appallingly apparent, and is just one event in one month of the year, not even tracking the flow-of-funds from the $6 Trillion missing from the Pentagon, the multiple Black Budgets, the channeled funds from the GSEs, the Treasury’s PPT, the Fed Funds quid pro quo with the major trading banks, and the fellow billionaire insiders who would prefer to have a surveillance world governed by multinational (not your nation) corporations, unaccountable and larger than governments, splitting them into more digestible pieces in Scotland and Catalonia.
I mean, really, is it so hard to follow? Suppose you had a taco cart with two customers a day, and he somehow made millions, his stock never went down, and bought up all the other restaurants and the City Council too, would you be a wee bit suspicious where the money came from? Because that’s the exact parallel here. It’s not a business, it’s a violent, abusive fraud. It’s the trillions we find missing in the water budgets of Flint, the City of Detroit, Baltimore, the P.R. electric grid, aren’t missing, they’re channeled to the profits of Google and the bailouts of Citi. It’s 10x the money you need to fix health care. It’s also illegal, unethical, murderous, and fatal both to men and society. And everybody eagerly signs up. Won’t even go down the street to the less-bad free encrypted mail service and browser.
What can I say? You’re the citizens. If you want to fix it, do your duty.
P.S. what is this guy talking about, the Panopticon Prison of social media? If it gives you the slightest trouble, if it’s an addiction or bad for society, dump it and live a real and healthy life. Alternatively, you could lead your real life publicly and damn the consequences. Srs, what’s wrong with these people? They have no responsibility for their actions. They’re just helpless pawns in game of life saying “we’re all like this, amiright?” No, you’re not right. Most of us behave and work and get kicked in the teeth for our trouble. 20 different bloggers come to mind, this site included. And you want to be taken seriously as a whiskey-drinking, chain-smoking, hard-boiled reporter that we can trust has the backbone to tell the hard truth? But can’t seem to write real articles because you didn’t get enough likes on Facebook? Must be nice to live in such a lightweight world as “The Guardian” inhabits, one of the only privileged jobs in one of the only remaining cities. Pass.
“A flatter curve, which makes lending less profitable, also poses a risk to the banking sector, nursed back to fragile health by central banks after it nearly collapsed a decade ago.” Aw.
Sure, if you “nurse someone back to health” by sapping the blood and destroying the health of every otherwise healthy person in the city. But I’m sure it’s all worth it. …If you’re the collapsing wealthy who otherwise wouldn’t survive the short trip they were headed for called “Truth” and “Real Price Discovery.”
One thing I don’t understand, no matter how many times I say it, the Government ARE the Rich. They are the same people, protecting each other. Any talk of how “The Government” is going to crush the wealth of themselves, their wives, their friends and patrons, is wildly misplaced.
What I don’t get is, why is that so hard to understand? Is Mr. Smith in Washington? Do we not have the same families taking office generation after generation, Bush and Churchill and Roosevelt? What on God’s earth would make anyone think “government” would help here? They’re the ones who WROTE the tax code you’re complaining about, for 100 consecutive years. Crickey.
Yes Robert Kennedy Jr., that well-known idiot and Russian spy. Oh and Jill Stein, how else would she dare to oppose she-who-must-be-elected? It can only be Vladimir Putin, God knows. Jesse Ventura, of course, everyone knew that even back in his Navy SEALs days. Obvious traitor. And Varofaukis of course, which is why he did not save his country from a decade of EU looting by turning toward Russia as Turkey has. Tricky-dicky, those Russians, who can account their devious minds?
You know who isn’t on the list? Ted Kennedy, who in recent unsealed records offered to sell the U.S. to the Russians to defeat Reagan. Clinton, who intervened in the Russian election to insure Yeltsin was elected, a meddling and collusion crowed from the rooftops of Time magazine. https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html So when we get with them it’s good but when they get with us it’s bad? Funny old world. Sauces and all that.
Well, that is the problem. If that’s even what’s happening, MBS has his work cut out for him.
So he’s making a play with China-Russia, who will force Iran on him, against the CIA/Bandar/Saudi nexus, against 70 years of radical, hard-core religious leaders, against his own half-brothers and other agitators who’ve been imbedded their whole lives and aren’t nobody in terms of counter-attacks. Modernizing and *gasp* working, is not going to be popular, at least a 50-50 proposition. At the very least, you have to expect Saudi will be heavily weakened and focused internally for quite some time, something Iran and the Shia axis is able to take full advantage of. But them’s the breaks. Maybe they shouldn’t have funded a bloodthirsty regional war in a play for world domination, should they?
I’m the worst at this, and as you say it’s all hidden, unconfirmed, double-crossing, in motion, BUT:
It seems to me we have the U.S./Israel/Saudi axis in trouble since they lost their blood and treasure trying to own the pipeline through Syria. S.A. then attempted to shore up their nearly-depleted reserves by exploring Yemen, whose hillbillies (compliment intended) gave them a tanning they’ve never before experienced, even with a trickling of Iran/Russian weapons facing multi-billions of U.K./U.S. weapons, even with the abundant use of Geneva-prohibited war crimes material.
So what’s a –probably dead– King to do? MBS is almost certainly the smartest, and one of the youngest princes, so with the decay of the CIA-Saudi-Bandar Bush nexus, MBS finds it not too difficult to reach the fore. However, he is both progressive, apparently peaceful at least in a relative sense, and is half-Syrian through his mother. So the CIA was agitating hard to have him sidelined for a more favored son. …Not that the U.S. would interfere in elections or internal politics, perish the thought! Because I hear that would be an act of war.
However, nothing doing, as their guy is lousy and stinks and no one likes him. And no one likes us. And we have no money and no army left in MENA. MBS on deck.
So, having lost in Syria, Israel suddenly realizes they have a fully mobilized million-man army on their borders, headed by Hezbollah, and DJT doesn’t look to follow the plan of invading everyone, everywhere, at every cost, including Iran. So they fallback to containing Shia, and getting their neighbors to fight, by arranging a Saudi-based war in Lebanon, and chew up a bunch of Hezbollah soldiers in the process. You could see this winding up.
However, it appears somebody unnamed put them on the game, told MBS we’d be on board if he cleaned house, and leaked a worldwide Israeli cable confirming it. 12h later, the Saudi PM of Lebanon (can you do that?) and all the CIA-Saudis are camping on the floor of the Carlton-Ritz Hotel. No coup, no Lebanon-Iranian war, and the pipeline going through on behalf of the rightful nations. –Oh and just solved their budget problem too. It’s not like the Saudi princes WEREN’T corrupt.
Back at the ranch, MBS is progressive, Saudi is going to modernize, stop exporting violent Wahhabism, get their refining, water, tourism, and other employment-businesses going, and open up to China and Iran for the investment money. Ending the petro-dollar and forcing the U.S. to openly compete. Trump is helpfully under China’s wing and out of the way the day this happens.
So does this make sense? S.A. is going to forcefully modernize and make nice-nice with the world whether they like to or not? China (and Russia) as their real power, and the real controlling force in the new middle east is going to make Shia and Sunni knock it off, and leave Israel out in the cold? Pepe and Taleb should know better than I do, but I find that older people are locked into outdated paradigms about the innate evil of Iran, and the innate power of Arabia, where the U.S. dictates and China owns nothing at all. None of those things are true anymore, and it doesn’t pay to be blinded by the past in an over-persistence of vision.
True.
And in a nice world, where we don’t let anyone take the consequences of their actions, is it any surprise?
Catalonia — or its leaders at least — suddenly learned it takes more to gain independence than a flag and an iPhone. Much as I understand the impulse to a public referendum, it’s a very serious business and Jose Hevia is largely correct. There actually is a legal framework to secede which they did not follow. The drive was supported by Catalonian oligarchs looking for power and to avoid enclosing law. They didn’t have adequate public support and no contingency plan either as a coup, or for subsequent governance. Doing this is legally sedition and treason, and clearly so with good reason. Because if it were that easy and legal I’d secede my house and not pay taxes too if it only took a referendum of ME. History shows that no one secedes — ever — without force of arms that is long, ugly, and desperate, and possibly not without the lasting support of a powerful assisting nation.
Here in the United States, post-“Hamilton” I should hope we are up to speed on this. We know it took eight dark and crippling years, splitting of every church and township, thousands of men willing the die for a truly impossible cause, massive, widespread guerrilla arms, and the wealth and influence of France to win — and even THAT was terribly unusual, lucky occurrence. Followed by how rebellions inevitably collapse into military tyranny like Napoleon, leaving everything far worse than before, which was only avoided here because Britain was too busy and the Founding Fathers disliked and distrusted each other too much.
Whether Catalonia should be independent is not for me to decide. But I can tell you they did not treat it as a grave, desperate, hanging offense that would get half of themselves and a quarter of Spain killed in a Franco-style civil war. Seriously. Haven’t 40 years of entirely useless, unproductive protests shown you that it takes more than a rally and a headline to effect real change on power? You need to be excruciatingly, maddeningly legal and moral, diabolically serious, incredibly brave, and angelically long-suffering as a whole people to have even a chance of winning. It’s possible to find those things in yourself in the middle of an existing war, but I wouldn’t count on it. If you’re not going to bring that, stay home: you’re just going to get a lot of people killed.
I could say the same to Antifa. Do you have the resources it takes to accomplish your plan? Okay, suppose you win, then what? What’s your restoration of government plan after a violent coup? If not, please save your lives and stay home. And thankfully, so far, they have. We hope it is to effect change peacefully through legal and proper channels, which is the better way if at all possible.
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” True, dat.
Sure. Apparently I’m writing them anyway. I’m just concerned I’m not the measured and responsible voice TAE is known for. Email my account.
Is Donna Brazile insane? While I appreciate some discussion of what has been truth apparent for decades, her story is just another, lesser, barrier of transparent lies.
She was core Democratic Party her whole life and didn’t know, had never heard rumors of the DNC’s financial position? Really? Likewise, Hillary gave them what must have been the biggest side-deal since Andrew Jackson, and nobody knew nothing? None of the State heads, the Staffers had any idea? You’re fired. Incompetent, out of touch…
But it goes on. Like the Greek bailout, Hillary’s campaign didn’t “fund the DNC”, since Obama stiffed her by leaving an empty bag, the money HRC raised only passed through the DNC pro forma back to herself and campaign. So what was she “bailing out?” Herself, of course, and to get hold of the tiny remaining state funds, except perhaps to fund raise once President, as BO traditionally should have.
Next question: if JDT was so bad, why was the party having so much trouble raising money? Was it, as other rumors suggested, everyone in the party hated HRC too, not just those reprehensible American people?
“Interim DNC chairman Donna Brazile, the first black woman to hold the position, was singled out by Hillary during the rant. She screamed at Donna, “I’m so sick of your face. You stare at the wall like a brain dead buffalo, while letting that f – – – ing Lauer get away with this. What are you good for, really? Get the f – – – to work janitoring this mess – do I make myself clear?”
A female NBC executive said that Donna Brazile looked at Mrs. Clinton and never flinched, which seemed to enrage Hillary all the more. The executive continued, “It was the most awful and terrible…and racist display – such a profane meltdown I have ever witnessed from anyone, and I will never forget it. https://investmentwatchblog.com/she-was-in-full-meltdown-hillary-unleashe… “
Okay, so she had nooooo idea, and had to investigate this for Bernie, who had nooooo idea. And discovered that Whatshername Shultz was making all decisions and telling the Board of Directors after the fact, even about the hack/leak. Who all said, “Meh, she’s like that.” And this was “perhaps” unethical, but not illegal. I’m sorry, but the DNC is a registered corporation, if you don’t follow corporate governance, that’s a serious offense. If money goes missing, is transferred in any way, to any one improperly, it’s embezzlement, and a felony. Since one person had the checkbook with no oversight, draw your own conclusions.
So she tells Bernie, aw, there’s nothing she can do. And Bernie, unsurprised, says, aw. Wait–he was unsurprised there was no longer corporate governance and the party, the election, the whole 220-year U.S. Democracy had been hijacked? Hold on, this was the same guy and gal who openly endorsed her and cried at the nomination? But now she’s shocked and appalled.
Okay, so knowing that, Brazile cheated by handing HRC the CNN test answers, getting herself fired, but only to take the place of Schultz, who got HERself fired.
Your point, Herr Doktor? When HRC collapsed in fair weather, back when any discussion of her increasingly poor health was a crazy conspiracy, Brazile was then looking for new candidates. She picked Joe Biden and Corey Booker. This is the insane part. A MONTH before the election? Heart-attack Biden who’d been passed over a dozen times? Booker with no name recognition? Golly, if only there were a candidate with name recognition, someone who’d been in the election already, someone with massive excitement and inertia, if only someone could galvanize the Democratic Party with new blood and excitement.
Yes, the only person she didn’t choose, couldn’t choose, apparently would never choose even to death, is the only candidate that actually won the nomination, and could win the general election, and she, and he, both agreed had been unfairly stiffed, and she had the power to set right, Bernie Sanders. Discuss?
Oh, and when minor PC Tech and general nobody Seth Rich was killed in a simple mugging in crime-prone D.C., she feared for her life and holed herself up in her apartment with security for weeks. Apropos to nothing.
But seriously, after all that, she picked Biden. And in a book of newly polished lies, she comes out and says it, so self-evident to everyone, it’s not even commented.
This is not accounting for the $6-9 Trillion missing from the Pentagon budget, and we have reason to believe both the Fannie/Freddie and funds such as Madoff’s were funneling money to the GWOT. We now have planes that can’t fly, and carriers that can’t steam and can’t turn, with no catapults and no planes to go on them. Our current missile is from 1975. So…where’d the money go again? It wasn’t into the military as we know it. Russia is one or even two generations ahead of us with 1/10th the budget.
Bitcoin rests on nothing but the need for trust in a world of incredible deadly liars. Shows how much we need trust and how badly they’re failing at it. So if it costs that much to mine, that’s a basic input cost, same as for gold, another totally, stupidly useless token. Given that input cost to mine, bitcoin is then wildly UNDERvalued. Bizarre, I know. But if you mine one useless thing per energy unit and it’s X, and you mine another useless thing per energy unit, and it’s Y, shouldn’t the price of bitcoin try to arbitrage to the actual mining cost? Nobody knows, because we’ve never done this before.
If they want to sink Bitcoin, it’s perfectly simple: stop lying, cheating, and stealing, and re-establish trust. It’s cheap and easy. Trouble is, then they would lose all their corrupt, ill-gotten, and ill-used power. So bet on Bitcoin for now. Wotaworld.
What will happen? As you point out, if prices fall, everyone will be underwater and uncollateralized, and the system will collapse, the rich lose money.
So that won’t happen.
On the other hand, wages could rise, taking their higher pay from the rich and unprecedented corporate profits.
So that won’t happen.
But if your standard currency collapses in confidence with rising interest rates, you have massive inflation, banks remain collateralized, the rich can hide in inflation assets, and real wages fall.
But with lower wages, who will be left own the houses and rentals? Same people who do now: the rich. They’ve all been bought by BlackRock, foreign investors, and Hedge Funds. And the wage earners will then own nothing, even less than they do now.
So what do YOU think will happen?
Now if only we could own and issue the new currency when we destroy the old currency, that’d be jake. Ripple, anyone?
Europe is pleased to announce they have re-started open air slave markets in Libya after a 100 year gap. Yes, come one come all and you too can buy a pretty lady on the streets of Tripoli! So proud. Perhaps we should headline with art like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Market_(G%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_painting) Winning!
Because sometimes you just can’t say something strongly enough. This is war, people, this is what it means. And as much as Europe applauded, it would be a miracle if one of its prime progenitors, the United States, were to escape as well. We’ll see. As you can tell from the news, it’s pretty toxic to live here already, even in the fairylands of L.A. and N.Y., even back when “Rent” was the sensation.
So Europe: 10 years of 50% unemployment. A few plug numbers in the interest calculator tells me that over 10 years, that would be $450,000 lost wages for even a modest job. That would be your retirement, which, if not compounded early, means you’re now an elderly pauper. Done deal, past tense.
But that’s not all! Fail now and there’s much, much more! No job, no money, no prospects? You win no relationships! No marriages! No children! And now your clock ran out. So sad. We know you don’t care, so how about this: no GDP, no stock market, no home sales, no retail, no arms sales, no cannon fodder for international armies.
You can get back the $450,000 — maybe — but can’t get back those ten years. If you were out at 20 and are now 30 and nothing has happened for you, for your friends, for your country. And that’s the good outcome, the German one. In Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, you’ve gone straight down with no hope in sight. How are you going to recover, to get back your time, your life? Are you going to be surprised when patience wears out and nothing they promise works anymore?
And it ain’t very different over here. You think we’re better than Libya? We aren’t in human trafficking? Watch Entertainment Tonight and tell me what you see, how all those people passed through for 25 years and nobody saw a thing. “But Herr Doktor, ve are ze good guys.” Sure, Corey, sure we are.
15h week is still entirely possible. In fact it’s easy, pleasant and free. Difference is you must adopt a Spartan, monastic lifestyle.
“There is enough for everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.”
Kunstler article on Peak Oil and Suburbia Fantasy Factories.
You’re right: he clearly has no resonance with the press or the American people, and almost everyone dislikes him, that’s why he was elected President.
Because he’s so entirely alien to America and it’s people, his comments have no impact, and are uniformly met with a big “Huh? Who cares?” We all ignore him because he just doesn’t push any buttons. In fact, it’s been a struggle just to get in the news.
Yes, it’s been quite a mystery how someone so foreign, so un-American-like, who was reported at a 30% approval rating after the election, who apparently 60% wanted impeached on the first day, somehow got the job by turning safe states that haven’t been lost in a generation.
Or perhaps that’s not what’s been happening? Maybe he knows the people and players of America well enough to attract attention and get the goat of supporters and detractors alike, chewing up the sacred cows into a spectacle of hamburger no one can turn away from? His antics seem to have a traction, a captivation, for better or for worse, with quite a few of that diverse body called “America”, and I think that’s the point here.
As for leaving the country, where would I go? Spain? Scotland? South Korea? South America? Seems the same wherever you go: trouble. And it’s meant to be. How else am I going to get everyone to give up their rights for my beautiful overarching “solution”(tm)? If I didn’t pay billions to insure the whole world was stirred up, violent, and broken, with people running everywhere, sensible people would ignore me, and then how would I become Grand Pooh-Bah of All the Earth, buyer and seller of your daughters? Don’t get distracted. They need this struggle. We don’t. Stick to your knitting.
That seems odd and uncalled for. Does it show the recent worldview that anyone to right of Mao is now Hitler? Or is it that anyone to the right of ourselves is now Hitler?
Trouble is, such cutting away has found the Left perched on a tiny branch made solely of the Trotskyist, identity-politics wing, and not only are they too purging themselves ever-smaller with a Neo-Cultural Revolution of ideological purity, but far worse, they don’t win elections. Being ever-smaller never does.
Point being, TOLERANCE is the winning hand. Tolerance not just for races, nations, classes, but for diversity of all peoples. That is, people who are different from ourselves and think differently. Why? Because EVERYONE thinks differently than everybody else: that’s what makes the world work and what makes it worthwhile. Since that simple gradient has no clear markers, we have to let each other speak and address the concrete points of their argument, and not jump to logical fallacies like overgeneralization or false equivalence. It’s not true that all Conservatives are Fascists. It’s not even true that ZeroHedge sympathizes with Fascists. (It is, however, true that Fascists are Socialists and are therefore Leftists)
In any case, the point, the legacy of Western Civilization itself, the culmination of all we’ve learned and proven in practice, is to let the other guy speak and assume in him as much goodwill as any facts will allow. After that, after the debate, discussion, the fact-proving by due process, then we make our determination.
But not just by slinging words and adjectives, saying he once read something or met someone, that since he saw the enemy’s flag once, he must therefore be the enemy. That’s McCarthyism. That way madness lies. As we see in the news every day now.
“Did you ever notice that anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?” —George Carlin.
