Dr. Diablo
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The Buffet argument leads to some interesting places. Do people have the right to eat what they want? Even if it’s bad for them? Who’s going to decide? Science, which keeps getting everything wrong? Who’s going to stop them? The police, who enforce the law in proportion to your net worth and often enough kill the little fish with impunity but let the big criminals free?
And there is a real damage, real cost to the “Society At Large.” But that is just us again, who either have rights or do not. And what happens if you double up on the costs to Society At Large by offering universal health care? One of the few restraints on bad (health) decisions is the knowledge that you’ll be paying for your own errors. So what happens if you never pay, but make your neighbor pay for you?
So if you agree to health care not paid individually, (which promotes death to the poor) don’t you immediately then have to take control over everyone’s eating, smoking, exercising, and life habits? And therefore, logically, once you accept helping Society At Large, you need to control and enforce every thing every human does down to every decision, every action, every breath, every bite?
I mean, isn’t that logical? If Buffet is responsible here, then aren’t we responsible to take it away from him, to force our will on society for its own good, as well?
It’s interesting stuff.
“Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow.”
They’re screwed. But below the redwoods almost all of California is a desert. Did anyone not notice this when they built houses for 30 Million people since 1940? Because they are not on anything you might call a water-efficient plan.
Although more sympathetic to farms that actually produce things, for decades they were growing hay and rice(!) on total irrigation as well. So maybe they can cry me a river if the bad planning of 50-100 years is finally showing some consequences. While they only–after 2 years of drought–stop watering 30M green lawns where sagebrush used to grow? Ever see the 1954 “Zorro”? Yeah, desert like that, right down to the sea.
I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but when you live in a blow-sand desert, you can’t take your New England ways with you. There are many great places in many great dry nations, but practically everything has to be thought of, built, and executed differently. Expectations are different. Crops, houses, industries are different. Not to leave on a downer, here’s an example of a little patience creating oasis from the desert: https://www.motherearthliving.com/gardening/water-wise-oasis.aspx
To a large extent, it isn’t the absolute rainfall, because rain is adequate in more areas than you’d expect, however, you have to store and use every drop to make it through the extended dry season. Dry years are far worse, but other desert cultures accommodate, so surely a wealthy and advanced nation can figure it out. Instead of denying reality of where and what we are, can we try a little?Wonderful to see it discussed at last. In ‘high’ places. That’s certainly a critical first step, because a child can see the present system is failed.
However, no one can tell what adds ‘value’. How about binary math, so critical to the function of the modern world? Sorry, ‘invented’ in 1679. Fiber optics? Gorilla Glass? 1870 and 1960, respectively. Flying cars? Invented ages ago but never valuable. ‘Tis a muddle.
At the same time, government overseeing money NEVER works. Ever. That’s how the present Central banks were chartered, and although perhaps independent at first, the two quickly form an alliance to support each other at the expense of people who actually create ‘value’ (whatever that is) and material goods with their labor. Whoever creates money cannot be trusted, as Meyer Rothschild so aptly said, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws”, because, as they found when they disbanded the 2nd U.S. Central bank after a mere 20 years in 1836, nearly every U.S. Congressman was already on the payroll of the bank. (The present U.S. bank has been in place 102 years.)
So why should anyone control the money supply at all? Well, to prevent the business cycle, presumably, to stop the breathing in and breathing out of living systems, which has created disaster merely EVERY time in HISTORY it has been tried, storing up 4, 10, 100 winters in a row to cascade on the economy all at once, destroying the children of the system’s founders. …But who cares about them, right? Party on Wayne.
Anyway, if you’re not d–n fool enough to hubristically attempt to stop all economic season and cycle, then you find nobody needs to authorize, create, or monitor money or its supply. Without decree, money–or base money, anyway, not its paper derivatives–tends to be a commodity. This commodity will fluctuate in value as all things do, although it is used as the yardstick and counting measure. That is fine, it causes no problems that aren’t there anyway. The one thing it DOES do, however, is contain the fraud, theft, and power of men and their governments, because ultimately they cannot create this base commodity out of thin air. They have to do work. They have to put up. Their attempted controls of this commodity are more visible to others to defend themselves. Any time men are involved in creating, controlling, or dispensing the money, you have to ask, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Bad men circle the system of power until they find a way to overtake and control it, and you’re back where you started. We have no way to cure the ambition of men; the best we can do is make distributed systems which lack power centers which can be hijacked against us.
Any system that starts, “we will give the Department of X unrestrained power over money” is certain to be a system that destroys you, regardless of who X is.
“We’re going through a soft patch.” –Peter Cardello, Rockwell.
Yeah, since 2001. Your entire CAREER has now been one long soft patch, like the “soft patch” between 1929 (or 1923) and 1949.
Ben “I Didn’t Throw Seniors Under The Bus” Bernanke, because using government (in effect) to choose winners and losers, to help debtors at the expense of creditors is what, exactly? Amazing.
Speaking of transferring from losers to winners: student debt. Here we have the overall situation of transferring the nation’s wealth TO seniors via social security, the stock market, and especially two-free-new-hips+double-bypass Medicare plan, (i.e. net-net the old and rich) and FROM the part-time-minimum-wage, one-healthcare-event-from-bankruptcy working men, (i.e. net-net, the young and poor). But the entire system unjustly transferring wealth from the net poor to the net rich is just what you would expect, isn’t it? I mean, when lobbying has a 22,000% return on investment? https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/01/25/boomtown-report-corporations-received-22-000-return-on-investment-from-lobbying/
Bernanke’s arranging the permanent transfer of the nation’s wealth from the prudent and working to the reckless and speculative is just a variation of the theme, as perfectly outlined in the Marketwatch article.
““Households are still flush with the money(!) saved from the big drop-off in gasoline prices and, with the labor market still on fire(!), incomes should continue to increase(!) at a solid pace,” –Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhaha! I haven’t heard anything that funny since George Carlin died!
“…one of the first things [Yemen President] Mr. Saleh did when his three-decade rule was threatened by the 2011 Arab Spring was strike a secret deal to give an entire southern province to al-Qaeda. The more he could portray Yemen as falling into militant hands, he calculated, the more the West want to keep him in office at all costs.”
Impossible. Governments would never promote violence and fabricate terrorism just to stay in power. Right? And this wasn’t their first and automatic response. Right? But surely, this is just Yemen. …Right?
Interesting article on polar regions. Maybe their similar appearance is deceptive, and what we really learn is that they’re more different than alike. Which is strange or unique. You’d think the formation of the planet’s geology would have a strong symmetry at the poles, but it doesn’t. I wonder what that means. Do other planets in our solar system also lack polar symmetry? If so, is there something we can discern from it?
Here in the Northeastern U.S. we’ve had the coldest winter in 60 years, and it may have been colder than even the 1950’s. It’s April 1st and there are still snowdrifts 4-6′ high. Temperatures remain in the teens (f). There have been no days over 50f through March–a deep anomaly. There was no winter thaw in either January or February–a deep anomaly.
Meanwhile, in Bogota, Columbia, they have had 24″ of snow. https://colombiareports.co/welcome-to-the-tropics-bogota-covered-in-24-inches-of-snow/ So…certainly something strange going on weather-wise, perhaps worldwide.
Anecdotal evidence is certainly not science. However, if you admit anecdotal temperatures in Antarctica as evidence of something, don’t you have to admit anecdotal evidence in other places as evidence also? I mean, it is possible northern temperatures are recently dropping while southern temperatures are rising–for what reason we do not yet know, but that has been the recent trend of the evidence. It has also been rumored that antarctic subsea volcanoes have been warming certain areas, even as land-pack snow has increased–although additional snow on Antarctica may be a sign of *warmer* coastal waters. At the same time, we recently had the sea ice form far sooner and deeper than expected, embarrassingly locking in the climate study ship Polarstar in 2014. So what does it all mean? It’s science. It’s messy. It’s complicated. But if you publish anecdotal outliers from one side, is it fair to ignore similar events from the other?
I can’t say that’s the most information-free Yemeni article I’ve read, because they all seem to be fact-free zones. I think it would take an encyclopedia and a scorecard the size of a Rand-McNally to figure out what’s really going on there. Some things we do know though: the nation was pretty much uninteresting to anyone until the “Arab Spring” initiative, at which time the U.S. suddenly found Al-Qaeda there and went in to take over the government in the usual drone-everyone, ask-questions-later way. Hard to tell if, as rumored by top general Tommy Franks in his famous YouTube article, the idea was to topple all MENA nations in a specific order, culminating in toppling Saudi Arabia with a new, more amenable government, to have them surrounded on all sides, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen. …Of course plans are great until someone throws the first punch, then you discover no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
So is it Al-Qaeda or ISIS there? Is Al-Qaeda still a thing anymore, in that many experts said they were never any more than a loose federation of Wahaabists, each with their own national/geographic cell? And how can they be Al-Qaeda, (Sunni extremists by definition) if they are supported by Iran (Shi’ites by definition)? And they can’t be ISIS, since Iranian general Soleimani is kicking their collective @$$e$ all over the deserts of Iraq and Syria. So…that would leave who, exactly, as the “rebels” (a pretty broad term) in Yemen? Maybe a tough desert people, who are Shi’ites and don’t cotton well to foreigners marching in and droning the crap out of their land? In other words, the Yemeni people themselves?
Who knows? But from the facts they’re admitting, you can be sure it is NOT be ISIS or Al-Qaeda, nor is Iran very deep in the place, not having had time.
P.S. great language there: “120-strong U.S. advisers.” Are you kidding me? 120 is a rowboat of advisers. They could all share the same pizza. The local riff-raff of any city on earth can take out 120 men by sheer attrition. 120 is the opposite of “Strong” as proven by their having to retreat immediately to where there are real troops and defenses that actually are strong. Not saying they aren’t good soldiers, or formidable men, but that’s like threatening the Russian army by moving 600 men and a dozen tanks to Poland last month when in WWII, Germany sent 4,000,000 men and 4,000 tanks and LOST. 120 is not “strong,” it’s a rounding error.
And they left $500M in (admitted) arms there. $2 per U.S. citizen, maybe $4 per worker. Great to know we’re paying for it! Isn’t abandoning live arms to your enemy a treasonable offense? You know–the way we court martialled all those soldiers who left all those live tanks, trucks, and bombs for ISIS?
Did you hear the U.S. taxpayer is now backing Ukrainian bonds? Does that make Ukraine the 51st state? Good thing Detroit doesn’t need that money!
How do you say “crazy” in ten languages?
Interesting, so it’s okay if Norway buys Tokyo and Tokyo buys Oslo, but not if they invest in their own people and improve their own neighborhoods? That’s human nature for you. At least lately.
So they’re investing in stocks which are clearly a bubble, but what makes you think sovereign bonds are safe? Perhaps they ARE being smart. Follow me on this: perhaps the most likely outcome, mathematically, is for sovereigns, currencies, to be defaulted, starting anywhere, but in Greece, in Japan, or the hollow shell of the rejected United States reserve currency. So if sovereigns have bailed out everyone, every bank, every lobbyist, every pal, contractor, and industry, who bails them out? Historically, I mean. Nobody. As Adam Smith noted as far back as 1776, sovereigns NEVER pay. NEVER. They always default. ALWAYS. They have shown some creative ways to do it, but when they can’t pay, they don’t. They have an army and their asset is the entire nation, what are you going to do? Repossess?
So if sovereigns are the last gambit and are already past the point of no return, then you can imagine them defaulting or “restructuring” as they like to say. If their bonds aren’t AAA but voted most-likely-to-fail, where do you hide? Where can you hide if you’re a fund with $100B under management? Just where we see in Europe today, which is in danger of default: in the DAX. Or into the DOW.
Why? Because if government bonds are the largest capital market, and they go worthless, at least stock is a part share of a going concern. And when you have a 40x size market flood into a 1x market, they can drive those “prices” very, very high. Just capital flows, looking for “safety”, such as it is.
So is it really more dangerous to be in stocks? Or is the real danger today in bonds? And do the money managers already realize this and are moving OUT of the danger of “AAA” assets and INTO the “safety” of world stocks at 30 P/E?
Here’s news you don’t see every day:
https://colombiareports.co/welcome-to-the-tropics-bogota-covered-in-24-inches-of-snow/24″ of snow in Bogota, Columbia. Que pasa?
“the €7.2 billion earmarked for Greece under the second adjustment program can be disbursed.”
It amazes me the way they present this, day after day, year after year. That is not MONEY being “disbursed”, it is DEBT being loaded on already burdened shoulders. That is to say, the OPPOSITE of being helped. With every disbursement they accept, their situation gets worse, not better; made poorer, not richer; and the people more injured, not restored.
Yet there is never an article on any side that highlights how the money they are arguing over is debt, which, even if needed for the very short term, is a dangerous toxin, and not “aid.”
Such is the root of our problems, really.
Interesting environmental links. So…billions of dollars in animal trade, hundreds of thousands involved, and nobody knows nothing, eh?
Green roofs are naturally a great idea, perhaps able to get traction for its widespread acceptance. One question, however: who pays for it? You have to think it’s going to be relatively expensive, and also otherwise they’d do it voluntarily. So requiring it may have long-term payback but in the short run will sharply slow building activity. Considering they’re in a depression, perhaps stop it altogether. This may be a good thing, but I wonder where it leads, or whether it would be more productive to provide incentives (like bonds offered against value of electric and/or water savings) rather than high commands.
“So let’s get this straight. The Troika does not have enough money to roll over Greek debt …But the Troika does have enough money to adequately perform damage control…”
This needs to be looked at very, very closely. And I’ll add one: the IMF has billions to support on Ukraine–illegal in 3 ways: juntas, debt levels, and war funding–yet $200M to keep Greek doctors and architects from whoring themselves on the streets of Athens is CraaaayZeee.
All you need to know to dispense with every official explanation completely discredit everyone involved, and start talking about the real motives and objectives.
Maybe we can start here: “You can’t govern a democracy when one-quarter of revenues are preempted for debt service.” Word.
So let’s see: $1.4B for a trophy office building. Check. Billions for an army to surround and protect that building. Check. $17.5B for war in Central Europe. Check. $0.2B to keep Western Europeans from dying of poverty? Where are your priorities?
Certainly. True science, vs. coffee table science, is a messy business that zigs and zags often, with hot, long-running debates that are often ended only by the passing of the scientists of old age. …Only to find what was settled then reverses again. That’s the nature of interpreting mass data outside a narrow replicable range, which at this point, is largely what it’s doing.
But that’s not what science tells the world it’s doing. We can blame journalism or textbooks for saying “X is simple, and X is settled”, but imagine you went to your doctor and said “wing A of science says this on statins/heart/cholesterol, wing B says something a bit different, and wing C the direct opposite.” The answer would be, “Two of those ‘guys’ are cranks, only one is true science.”
To which the skeptic’s answer is, “Which one? You changed your mind the last 9 times.”
Then science wonders why no one takes this week’s pronouncement as gospel. Clearly, the people are stupid, ignorant, and need to take their medicine. Meanwhile, if a scientist WITHIN science poses the exact same objections, it’s considered intelligent, good form, and an exploration of truth. The perpetual dissension permitted to their own members is not their external face, and while pretending to be egalitarian and truth-oriented, is also not “permitted” to anyone outside science.
So maybe it isn’t that the masses don’t know science. Maybe it’s that they’ve come to know “science” too well. And that the family of science has become pretty careless, dysfunctional, and corrupt over the years, while not making much effort in the past few decades to clean up their act. And therefore, perhaps, after long forbearance, they are getting the disrespect they have earned.
The problem is that like governments or markets science does a lot for us, and similarly, any internal corruption is disruptive and costs lives and treasures for which they assume no responsibility. So cleaning up science-for-hire, or say, the recent scandal of publishing 120 computer-nonsense-generated articles, https://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763 has become a very very big, but also a very very difficult thing…just as we see in government or finance. The difference is, unlike government or finance, they don’t even pretend to reform and still publicly demand respect and obedience.
So problems:
Allows internal members to dissent, but says external dissenters are crazy.
Has publicly contradicted itself for decades on a wide range of subjects but doesn’t see the problem.
Has publicly been openly caught in false science or science-for-hire scandals but still sees itself as white knights.
These errors have been disruptive and/or deadly for individuals or society for more than 100 years.
Unlike government or finance, they don’t even pretend to reform or take responsibility.Leading to the obvious…
Diminishing confidence of the public in anything “science” says.People like science. I know I do. But why should they be except from the rules of courtesy, conduct, and karma we expect from everyone else? Fix the problems and the people will go back to trusting them.
BTW interesting, why people no longer believe science, by Scott Adams
https://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-biggest-fail“I saw a link to an article in Mother Jones bemoaning the fact that the general public is out of step with the consensus of science on important issues. The implication is that science is right and the general public are idiots. But my take is different.
I think science has earned its lack of credibility with the public. If you kick me in the balls for 20-years, how do you expect me to close my eyes and trust you?
If a person doesn’t believe climate change is real, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is that a case of a dumb human or a science that has not earned credibility? We humans operate on pattern recognition. The pattern science serves up, thanks to its winged monkeys in the media, is something like this:
Step One: We are totally sure the answer is X.
Step Two: Oops. X is wrong. But Y is totally right. Trust us this time.
Science isn’t about being right every time, or even most of the time. It is about being more right over time and fixing what it got wrong. So how is a common citizen supposed to know when science is “done” and when it is halfway to done which is the same as being wrong?
You can’t tell.” –Adams
Also a recent topic on Archdruid Report.
Merkel–or the insiders–really needs Greece to be out by the Spanish election. Whatever they have to do to make that happen. Because exiting a currency is a messy business that will come with acute hardship…after which it recovers quite quickly and with virtually no penalty–see Argentina for example.
If the crisis can be made bad enough on Greece, Spain will be scared–as perhaps Scotland was–into staying with the EU for another cycle, when they see how well Greece made out. Another 2 or 4 years may be all they need to accomplish political consolidation, or some other outside plan (a pan-European war?). They may need to sacrifice every man and woman in Greece to terrorize Spain and Italy, but as Albright so famously said, “we think the price is worth it.”
I guess we’ll all find out soon.
Sure, and as we know, Merkel, like many leaders, may not be in charge of anything. Or not anymore. A deeper state has taken over, one that understands “math” and “survival.” And perhaps some of the events are not as they appear, for example, Germany wants, needs, and is requiring Greece to leave the Euro. Germany doesn’t WANT the Euro, or at least not the southern Euro. All northern countries have recalled their gold for a move to a gold-“backed” northern Euro, and therefore their much-vaunted Euro project, for which men like Schauble have trampled everyone on the continent, is dead. But worse–much worse–than dead is that they will have to *admit* it is dead, and/or they were wrong. So it’s not whether you win or lose, but where you place the blame. On Greece. Likewise, Greece is aware of this role they’ve been cornered into and are pushing the blame just as violently back on Germany and the EU. In which case, Merkel’s actions make perfect sense.
In Russia’s case, Russia has the GDP of Italy, and their bourse is the size of Apple Computers. They can’t exactly face down NATO and the United States. Unless you want a nuclear war–which the U.S. clearly does–then the U.S. can only collapse in on itself. That takes time. And once you’ve got the giant in a Putin-judo hold, the only thing you can do is wait for it to pass out. And that takes time. What would you want from Germany, an occupied nation with 54,000 U.S. soldiers and heavy arms located there, and the NSA integrated throughout their military and communications system? To kick out the yanks? The loss of the airbase would cripple the U.S. as a world power, you can’t just revoke their visa and think nothing would happen.
So wouldn’t it make more sense to make strategy with Putin, slowly bleeding, discrediting and withdrawing from the U.S., building the Brics Bank, the Rus-Swift, the non-US fiber network, as well as giving the people of Europe time and events to illustrate why the change must be? But that takes time.
As far as I can see, the U.S. is losing, and with the U.K. joining as charter member of the BRICS bank, they’ve turned a corner into a blind alley. All the world–and Merkel–has to do is wait. When your enemy is destroying himself, let him. So what do you expect her to do? Everyone in Europe knows the score. Just let nature take its course. There’s no point in saying anything. Europe knows what she’s saying by not saying anything at all.
“The reduced day-to-day variability that we observed makes weather more persistent…”
Periods of extended calm are signs of Global Warming. Interesting thesis, perhaps true.
I don’t wish to be rude here, but wouldn’t this mean that calm weather is a sign of Global Warming, adding to hot weather as a sign of global warming, extreme cold as a sign of global warming, and wild or stormy weather as a sign of global warming?
Combined, doesn’t that mean that any weather one can have is a sign of global warming? Or the logical inverse, there is no evidence anyone can provide, be it hot, cold, stormy, calm, moderate or extreme that wouldn’t be an indication of global warming?
If so, aren’t you really starting from your conclusion? Science is a discipline where you have theses that can be proven or disproven via the results of experiments. What experiment are you asking me to run when any data, however different, must result in an identical conclusion?
<Sigh>“…A state with a sovereign currency is never revenue constrained. In fact, the government has to first create the money before the private sector can find a way to get the money it requires to pay taxes and by government bonds. Taxes and bonds are therefore not really the source of government funding or finance.”
No! No! No! Governments do not create money because they do not create wealth: they destroy it. Okay, true, within certain limits, governments can require taxes be paid in their pet paper which is why Income or other tax is created at the same time as fiat currencies. The market can largely go around that if they wish, but in practice, why bother? So aren’t I admitting her points? No! Although it is true the government-created currency works within a country’s borders, ANY currency would work within a country’s borders. It’s when a nation needs to buy things outside their borders that the trouble starts. Then you need to have some real good, some currency the other guy (nation) wants and believes in. Just like now, like her example in Greece–if Greece had no trade (etc) deficit, no problem: they would be solvent. So…adding or removing a national currency does what, exactly? Nothing. They are neither richer or poorer and no more able to buy outside goods. It’s a canard. If you just make up a currency, claim your nation is unlimited and can print unlimited paper-whatever-claims, you’ll immediately flood a market that has no confidence in you or your paper. It’s been done, it’s called “hyperinflation,” and is immediately followed not by infinite prosperity but “default.” Confidence in your tax receipts is what backs your paper. THAT is your currency. And as Greece shows clearly, it ain’t unlimited.
Next, “advanced tax receipts”. That’s what all fiat currencies are based on already: the belief that the nation can tax itself to run itself and repay loans. So if we already have this, why are we creating another name for it? You can’t borrow against future tax receipts twice, once for expected Euro-participation and once for your own spending. If they swap to one, they lose the other. This is because money is not the thing, it is a REPRESENTATION, a measurement of the thing; ie. “wealth.”
So far, you’ve got “advanced tax-receipts”/fiat currency and you’re within the borders. So how is “a sovereign currency” “never revenue constrained”? First, there is only so much wealth internally. That’s “revenue.” If you said “never CURRENCY restrained,” it would be true. “Revenue” is wealth; it’s value. There’s a finite limit in a finite country, and a practical cap of how much can be extracted before the internal economy, and revenue, collapses. We’re at or over that cap worldwide already. So all nations are absolutely, always “revenue constrained.” If they weren’t, all nations would print infinitely and infinitely increase their wealth. Ya think somebody might have hit on this before now?
Put another way, erase money from the equation and look at the physical goods in the nation: are their goods and internal energy unlimited? Their capacity to move them around? Can they make every item they might ever need without external trade? The answer is no. Therefore all nations are finite. Decidedly, extremely, acutely finite. We can therefore declare that besides military conquest and/or default, taxes (and bonds which are a claim on future taxes and/or market credulity) are ABSOLUTELY the ONLY source of government funding.
Last, “the government has to first create the money…” No. That is how we PRESENTLY do things–and in fact, not even that way entirely as the shadow banking system is extending boundaries–but it is not required, perhaps not even advisable. Did trade exist before or outside of governments? Of course. So how could that be before governments starting printing currency? A hundred ways: gold, silver, seashells, cattle, tobacco, warehouse receipts, bank notes, real bills, etc etc etc etc. In fact, why are they even involved? Especially as under the new system, it’s implied that money/currency only exists if you put the nation in debt? I mean, so which is stronger and better, a debt-free nation or an indebted one?
So let’s re-state her premise truthfully: “…Any state, with or without a sovereign currency, is ALWAYS revenue constrained. The government does NOT have to first create money before the private sector can find a way to get the money it requires to pay taxes and by (sic: buy) government bonds. Outside of war or theft/reneging via default, taxes and bonds are ALWAYS the real source of government funding or finance.”
It’s the NFL rule: There ain’t No Free Lunch. Please, let’s not repeat these fallacies or we’ll never apply a workable solution.
“Europe must not be made to look stupid.” Well, stupid is as stupid does. There’s only so much anyone can do about the appearance of it.
“they only allow the propaganda-driven aid shipments from Moscow to pass.” I’m lost in this translation. Propaganda now has a driver’s license and gets behind the wheel? Or are they saying Russia wishes East Ukrainians dead and would only deign to support them out of sheer spite for the propaganda value?
Why does Russia keep putting their country so close to our troops? Do they want a war or something? If so, they are very sneaky indeed, as there is no military build-up on the border, nor yet any published evidence of heavy arms moving to Donestsk.
Meanwhile, to the north, “Troika, troika, troika. Na-na-na-na-nah. Phttttttth!”
“ECB President Mario Draghi told Greek officials they…must let euro-area representatives return to Athens if they are ever going to obtain more aid” I know not everyone believes it, but didn’t Tsipras tell you he didn’t want more “aid”? That is, in the sense that “aid” would be giving something, helping, whereas this is more debt, more weight, and therefore the opposite of “aid”? Their designing the new Drachma didn’t ring any bells? Negotiating with Russia over food sales and China over ports…nothing? Russia handing Greece billions in yearly gas transit fees just white noise?
Nevermind, I guess we’ll all see which way this goes.
“If the euro fails, Europe fails”
How? Europe is a location. Will it sink into the sea? I’d say I’d never heard such a load of stuff and nonsense, except now I hear such rot, illogic, and lies almost daily. Newsflash: if the EU fails, Europe, along with all her countries and peoples, will still be there, same as when Rome fell, Charlemange fell, Napoleon fell, the British Empire fell, and Czechoslovakia and East Germany fell. They’re all still there. Not going anywhere. Things just change, due a thing we call “time.”
“The message is clear: Stop fighting, strive for peace and we – the IMF and international investors – will help you” So…this is the same IMF that only last fall demanded the Junta MUST attack Eastern Ukraine immediately and at all costs, under the name of “territorial integrity” as a condition of IMF money without which the government would immediately fall. Or is this a new IMF that wants them to STOP fighting, while they are importing thousands of troops, equipment, and advisers worldwide. Because if they want peace, they really need to send a memo that Kiev is doing the OPPOSITE of getting IMF money.
Just a note/reminder, it is entirely illegal for the IMF to fund the Ukraine in several different ways: 1) the new government was established by a coup (also illegal for the U.S. to fund them, as we saw last year with Congress vs. the new Egyptian government–also ignored) 2. The country is beyond bankrupt by any measure and the IMF cannot fund loans that will not be paid back. 3. The money if provided would be used for war, also directly against their mandate.
But hey, law? That’s for the other guys, not me.
Why do the Russians hate us for our freedoms?
It may be a false choice. In one way, yes, we would have to stop using so much plastic, so much oil; but guess what? Our quality of life doesn’t depend on it. In truth, we waste most of the plastic and most of the oil on things we don’t love and on things that aren’t necessary. In the U.S. for instance, centralizing schools so there is an hour bus ride, and therefore a million soccer moms driving 2-3x as far to activities. Triple-packaging products and foods when everybody loves and indeed prefers coke bottles in a wooden crate, sausages hung open over the counter, and waxed paper to wrap them in. I can say this categorically, for this is what our false nostalgia sells in supermarkets, restaurants, and home decor. This is what top-end hipster foods sell, and why we love it. This is what we dream of inside. So we would have to live closer, drive less, recycle, use less of things that cost more. Is that a drop in standard of living, as suggested above? It’s a drop in GDP. It’s a drop in the amounts we buy and the number of things we have. But it is also an increase of happiness and satisfaction in life, by making it matter, doing what we love and what is right, and a deep economic efficiency that is also sustainability that replaces the present insanity.
Is it a drop in standard to living to live better and do what we love? You decide.
Are they endangering the refugees by accepting them and therefore encouraging thousands more to attempt the journey, enriching dangerous smugglers, or are they helping them by apprehending them and placing them in the system? In other words, if Italy refused and returned all refugees harshly, would the overall numbers stop this dangerous activity and thereby save lives? Would these good people then focus on improving and restoring their home country? Or would they simply be killed at home instead of at sea? Wouldn’t the millions spent on carry fees be better spent in Libya instead of transferring them to bad and selfish men? How would that change Libyan society and recovery?
If Italy instead accepts the refugees, who pays for their restoration, food, shelter, legal fees, highly expensive rescue ships, etc? Should the Italians pay? How can Italy afford to mitigate all the social problems in Libya? Why just Libya? Why not Chad, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Greece and the Ukraine as well? Would it have been more cost-effective not to have bombed Libya, toppled the government, and caused a total social collapse on their border? Next time, should that cost be estimated as the cost of war and attributed to the Italian Defense budget?
If you receive 4,000/mo. or 170,000/yr of non-italian speakers into a country of 60 million, with an unemployment rate between 20% and 40%, aren’t you basically importing the horrors of war and collapse into Italy? Why would you voluntarily do that if you could, for example, use the same expense to help Libyans in Libya instead? How does importing them help the Italian people and how does it fit with the national mandate to care for and represent those people?
That’s a lot of questions. But helping the first person in need with no thought of the next one may end up hurting hundreds or thousands without their permission. This is the logic of the seen and the unseen. We can do better than that.
Oh yes, that Petrobras field was always fantasy–at least for the decades it would take to invent the technology to go out 150 miles and drill down 2-5 miles. Worse than the gas fracking land bubble–at least onshore gas is plausible, if you squint and don’t look too hard.
It seems to me that the corruption on Brazil is very much par for the course worldwide. In Britain, France, U.S., and not to leave out Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Africa, and probably upper Greenland if there are any companies there. We had open vote-rigging in Scotland. Open $5B bribes and influence in Ukraine. Open 100,000+ robosignings (aka, felony perjury and fraud) in the U.S. to say nothing of Sachs CEO Paulson kill and eat Bear and Lehman, then force taxpayers to foot AIG, destroying the entire world financial system just to keep his ex-company afloat. Openly. Petrobras is small beer.
My point? So…if this is worldwide, every day, how is it that Brazil, and Dilma/Petrobras, have suddenly become so gosh-darn unlucky all of a sudden? All these frauds were de rigeur for DECADES. Suddenly now Brazil finds itself shocked–shocked!–to find gambling going on in the casino. Or might it be that, unlike equally-corrupt but well-owned Lula, Dilma and Petrobras are trying to hop over the fence of U.S. hegemony? At the same time that equal surprising ill-luck seems to be hitting Russia, Venezuela, or even France when they moo and bray some minor independence?
One more question: Petrobas was worth $310B and lost $270B = $40B. What do you think an entire oil company offhand might be worth? You know: pipelines, ships, refineries, reserves, staff, buildings, agreements? I’m guessing even in this environment something more than, say Pinterest is worth. Apple is now worth more than the whole of Russia. Russia is rated junk with high assets and low debt, while the U.S. and co are rated AAA with low assets and debts higher than Greece. So…maybe in a world where 110% of debt is monetized, LIBOR, metals, aluminum, housing, stocks, are openly rigged with no charges, maybe Russia’s Ruble trouble and Petrobras’s stock price might have something more to do with HFT algos backed by total legal immunity and unlimited free money?
I mean, if I can cause enough bad luck, I can buy up a company worth $400B for $40B right? And do it by borrowing the money from my pals at 0% interest. In that environment it would be pretty hard to lose. And pretty hard to believe anything we see is for real.
More false accuracy in science. There are 101, or 1,001 factors that lead to war–the foreign injection of arms and money for opposition might be more of a root cause than the weather, for example. So how can you tell how much effect such a thing would have, and whether that effect has any threshold relevance? And that’s agreeing that climate change does and would have large-scale effects on war and migration. You could as well say that the recent appearance of girl scout cookie sales has had this effect. Really? They are coincident factors. How do you measure? How do you quantify? How do you prove? How do you disprove the recent appearance of hula-hoops was not the factor instead?
If anyone was using actual science here, they would know the article’s hypothesis mirrors the science of chaos theory, where things may SEEM cohesive, only to find that, in a complex equation with many, many factors, a small alteration of one factor can sometimes have a revolutionary effect, whereas the large alteration of a large factor sometimes has only a small effect. And worse–sometimes, but not always. That’s why they call it “chaos” theory, although it might be better named “things that are still far too complex to model with our puny tools” theory.
Someday we may be able to accurately model these things and know for certain. Today is not that day.
Keen, what? This guy is the definition of a tautology. We have a goal in defining “money” so we simply add or remove elements until it fits the definition we desire. So he’s narrowed the definition to his liking: then what? What is his goal in doing so? Just to prove barter is barbarous? Or to legitimize adding a 3rd party to our every transaction, a 3rd party that cannot work for free (be definition) and needs a cut?
Pretty strange stuff. Question of what is money is a broad, complex one, but guess what? Doesn’t matter. What matters is you can efficiently trade the fruit of your work for that of other people’s. You can use rice warehouse receipts(Japan), measures of wheat(Egypt), iron bars(Norway), woman slaves(Ireland), public bonds, private bonds, Ithaca Dollars(US), “Real Bills”(everywhere), bank notes, FRN, silver coins, or quatloos. Every one has their disadvantages, and any one will work.
I think we might want to explore the disadvantages of having the 3rd party nosing around in our every transaction and getting paid for it with our labor, though. It might give them a wee bit of an advantage over us, methinks.
Can’t assume that because food at present is grown using oil that food cannot be grown without it. For one thing, yield per acre rises given more human attention, perhaps as much as 8-fold. Obviously, changing food away from oil suddenly would be disruptive. For one thing, mega cities would be more expensive and less viable. So guess what? People would migrate back to the country to be employed growing more yield-per-acre. It’s not crazy when we just moved from the farm to the factory; now that there are no (human) factories it can be reversed just as fast. Compared to paying people to eat but not work, it’s downright sane. —Or sanity-building, to reconnect with farms, life, worth, and process.
Of course the #1 main item on this list is to grow food locally and avoid transporting it. In much of the world this is possible, but not done for other reasons. The other big gain is to use all the 2nds and cast-offs instead of dumping them. This leads down the list to this waste feeding livestock instead of grains and 1st run feedstocks, but that would require smaller farms and smaller scales. After that on the list, mixed-farm husbandry leads to vital manure that keeps the system moving without petrol. Animals are complained of as wasting food by people who don’t personally know farming. They are your vital soil and fertilizer factory. At a small-scale compost can provide, but moving up into 5-100 acres, compost just can’t do it. You must add animals–compost factory specialists–which is unsurprisingly why it was done that way worldwide for 5,000 years ’til now. They are also your machine to eliminate waste and make gains on marginal lands like Texas, high, steep fields, and other niches you and I might not imagine. This also does not broach permaculture, food forests, or considering wild game as your livestock.
There’s a lotta lotta food out there. Reports say 40% in the U.S. (i.e. the west) is wasted. Imagine if you’re cutting the 40% down to size while more intensively cropping, doubling yields and dramatically cutting unemployment while re-creating location and community. Sounds like it might be an opportunity, not a problem.
The Greeks are still up to something. Give them time.
Yesterday meeting on Chinese warships, presumably a place on earth where their discussions cannot be overheard.
Thank you for showing me I’m not the only one bringing up the obvious with Bengladesh.
Sea level variations are fascinating science. You’ve got earth spin, tidal forces, tidal bores, gravitational variation (e.g. weight of ice sheets), density/temperature variations, and my favorite, earth bulge, a 21km rise in sea level over what one would expect from gravity alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_bulge That’s why I was joking about the earth’s rotational force.
Interesting science and/or theory from that: if the ice accumulates over time at the poles, the earth tends to squish more (as the ice becomes de facto earth crust). At the same time, if the ice vanishes, the earth deflects back to round(er). In theory, this could cause dramatic earthquakes going off on the worldwide fault lines. This could set off the thinner crust of undersea volcanoes, which turns out there are way more than we used to suspect, and still have a terrible hard time tracking. The CO2 from these would hit the atmosphere, heating it, melting the too-much ice that has accumulated. Then the heat from the planet’s oceans leads to increased precipitation over centuries, leading to more cloud formation and counterintuitively, increased glaciation. (Imagine double the snow in a given winter overwhelming a few degrees of additional heat) Glaciation leads to increasing ice packs, then cooling with the white effect, then re-compressing the poles, starting all over again.
It’s an interesting mechanism that would, again in theory, help explain the cyclical ice ages which go back aeons, in 10,000-year cycles over 100,000 year periods. Pre-man, if I need add, because what caused the rhythmic cycles back then? A lot of science would have to be put into this–and a lot has already–but at the moment it remains an interesting thought experiment in how large and how robust homeostasis is on our little blue ball. –The Dr.
“I mean unless the rotation of the earth is different there.” /sarcasm
Clearly. I wasn’t even addressing the issue of whether sea levels are rising. Only bringing up my belief that because of gravity, most probably the sea rises and falls equally on all shores.
If not, I’m open to the science that makes this possible. Hit me.
“Seas are rising more than twice as fast as the global average here in the Sundarbans”
Maybe I’m missing something here, but doesn’t the sea level have to rise the same pretty much everywhere? I mean unless the rotation of the earth is different there.
Perhaps they mean subsidence? Where the LAND sinks while the seas remain average?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubsidenceBTW this is also the well-known problem in Venice with long-term subsidence bringing the Mediterranean over the popular square. Also happens in New Orleans as the Mississippi and its silt has been diverted. And many other places I’m sure: probably half of them.
I’m embarrassed the world can read this stuff credibly. Next thing, the sun will rise in one place and not another.
And for some reason, we think they don’t know this?
Sure are a lot of distressed assets to buy on the cheap and lots of concessions to claim if the crisis can be made worse.
Again, what makes you think that Germany doesn’t want to make Greece responsible for breaking the Union? And Varoufakis is certainly making it hard on them. At this rate, Germany will have to take some responsibility too.
It’s an interesting question what holds the U.S. together, I’ve thought of many times. Primarily, the U.S. is an IDEA, not a geographical place, and absolutely, positively not a fiscal union. The “Idea” is the principles encoded in our founding documents about the rights and responsibilities of men and their governments, which is why we get so schizophrenic when those beliefs are contradicted.
We can be pretty sure it’s not a fiscal union because from the Treaty of Paris right through the Constitution, Civil War, and on, there was no transfer of taxes from rich to poor. In fact, “social justice” and the “redistribution of wealth” is completely against the founding principles of the nation, and indeed the covenant between people, states, and federals, which is why in 1913 they had to pass an Amendment to change the Constitution: it was flat-out illegal before, for better or worse. This also broke the U.S. as a collection of independent national governments, ie the States, and finalized their servitude to the Federal level instead of their collective cooperation in creating that level–a thing which also was not originally intended and not seen until then. Only then did the Federals have even the foreshadow of “redistributing,” because roughly until then, they WERE the states, sitting in self-council. Remember until this time Senators were not directly elected but representatives of their State governments.
Governments are not founded on the principle of stealing from me to give to you because they don’t last long on a foundation of every man/group/state being out for themselves to steal from the other guy, and this is exactly what we see in Europe today. As Bastiat would say, this is the illusion of everybody living at everybody else’s expense.
But to be productive in this argument, what makes non-distribution work, when intuitively, socialism, redistribution “to each according to their needs,” SHOULD work so much better, but absolutely never, ever has? The U.S. was founded on opportunity. They didn’t just hand money from N.Y. for Nebraskans to take Carnival Cruises with, day after day for 100 years: the money was invested into barren wasteland because they believed it could be make productive and sustain itself. Turns out, with a lot of hard work, totally new inventions, innovation, and development, it could. Not everywhere, as much of the U.S. remains a beautiful wasteland for now, but far more than anyone ever imagined in 1804 looking at the “Great American Desert” of the Great Plains, today the world’s richest land. Someday R.E. mining, solar, wind, who-knows-what may transform Death Valley, who knows? But the money wasn’t “transferred” to provide welfare to indigent populations, it was invested to explore if more could be created from a little, and when it could, to see how much more. If it couldn’t, wealth was withdrawn with an arcane and outdated thing we used to call “bankruptcy.”
This is simple EIEO accounting, thermodynamics. If more energy isn’t returned than is invested, the activity is not sustainable. The Sisyphean task is then halted as being stupid and counterproductive. We don’t just keep offering free houses and health care in Death Valley or the bottom of the ocean because it doesn’t make sense. People then gravitate to places where they can be productive, as evidenced by their own prosperity. All this is the OPPOSITE of wealth transfers from N.Y. to Utah, from Boston to W. Virginia, which having passed the 16th Amendment, set up a Central bank, and post-WWI and II, and a large enough Federal Government to intervene in everything, is what we do today. Everywhere. And especially Canada. But by doing so we prevent the States from working and adjusting because it’s easier to steal from neighboring states, which causes bad will, social disintegration and the dissolution and/or civil war of the country. That’s what we see today. The OPPOSITE of America, the original intent, and the end of what made us strong.
So prescribing to Europe what is causing the U.S. itself to disintegrate into violence may not be wise. However, Europe’s solution is the same as ours: not wealth transfers, the long habit of robbing neighbors, but to STOP robbing neighbors and let each stand on their own merits. If they believe there is opportunity, they can lend money on the chance.
And if it fails, they can lose that money without crying like a bunch of pantywaisted sissies before crying to mommy and stealing it back from the people.
Won’t Grexit mean superausterity? Yes and no. First of all, Greece has already collapsed so much that they are in a trade surplus, or at least near par. So despite vehement claims to the contrary, they are already in a “better” financial state than even Germany, and are already paying their way on a cash basis. You can’t go down from there, that’s the foundation to health. At the same time, they’re repaying interest on debt fraudulently conveyed to them, from the moment of Euro-entry, organized by Sachs, well-known by every Euro nation and the world, piled on by additional loans added, to a known mathematically bankrupt entity, again illegal. So if they stop paying–which mathematically, they always had to, from 2000 onwards–
then every dollar not paid to the bankers is used to pay for the people.
Quite simple math, actually. But more yachts for people who will buy guns to shoot you with, or, say, let your 2nd child go to the doctor and live. Hmmm… A, or B?
With the realization that Greece has ALREADY hit superausterity, ALREADY taken the pain of exit and has nothing to lose, it’s only the details. I’m sure they’ll suddenly find terrorists there, or an army or something, but it’s going to be pretty hard to convince Greeks to face against Greeks right now. Tsipras could pull a Chavez and buy a Russian rifle for every adult male, that seems to have slowed them down a bit in Venezuela. But technically, if Greece wants to leave, there’s basically not a darn thing anyone can do about it except invade and occupy–which is very expensive and doesn’t look to work right now.
Financial options, let’s break the box quickly so you can see how broad they are. Charles Hugh Smith from OfTwoMinds suggests why not use the U.S. dollar? How’s that for an outlier? It’s used as the currency of many nations worldwide, is available, has value, must be accepted, and Greece has no way of inflating it. It can be installed in an afternoon, especially as nationalizing the banks (hopefully along a Swedish plan) is one of the platforms of Syriza, past tense. They WILL nationalize the banks, control them, and “reform” them to whatever will Syriza sees fit.
As above, the more likely choice is to join Eurasian Trade Zone which would give guaranteed gas transit fees, guaranteed trade in tourism, trade, and food, and most likely, weapons. For all the talk of wasteful, spendthrift Greeks, you didn’t forget the billion$ in arms the EU forced Greece to buy, like a couple new submarines? Surely useful heading into the 2010 catastrophe. Having already turned Turkey (or the West trying to topple Erdogan with ginned-up riots turned him) Eurasia would then own Syria, Iran, Turkey, and Greece, splitting Europe off from the Middle East and Israeli gas fields, and Saudi Arabia. As the US hasn’t a prayer of shipping energy to Europe–especially now–then Russia/Eurasia then controls Europe. The End.
Which leads to the next idea: what makes you think Germany isn’t being strict precisely BECAUSE they know it will force Greece to exit? They want to flip East to save their economy/life, but are in a bind with the US/EU. If Greece exits, the EU shatters, throw in some bank turmoil, then Germany has cover to say, “this thing isn’t working, we’re starting a northern trade zone” which is why Netherlands/Belgium/Austria/Germany all recently got their gold back–to float the new currency block they know they’re starting. Greece will be the excuse. They decided Greece will exit already last year, they need to force it to happen and Tsipras to take the blame.
Third, of course, Greece can float a Drachma. As above, the support of Russia plus residual ties with Europe will probably make it possible. Since they’re already under crippling austerity with a surplus, I doubt it would be much worse, or anyway not for long. Despite a lot of hot air, Greece has a LOT of resources to back the Drachma. The co-gas fields with Cyprus, Turkey, plus the transit fees, plus the famous ports/shipping, plus ag, plus tourism is what they always had, and there’s no reason to change. Note the problems Greece had started about the time those new gas fields were discovered, and were among the assets slated to be stripped in austerity. Coincidence, I’m sure. But there’s no reason to think it would be anywhere near as bad under the Drachma, after a year or so, than it is now, because it allows people to go back to work and cooperate again.
Just some ideas.
The Lavrov thing makes me sick with worry. Brings to mind the families who packed a picnic to sit on a hill and watch the opening battles of the US Civil War. Because that worked out so well. Or, as perennial diplomat and resident owned-man Gorbachev said, “Are you out of your bleeping minds?” Europe seems to be finally cottoning on to the fact that, yes, the Yanks are out of their crack-addled minds. Or their leaders are, anyway.
For a smart guy, Farrell is often a dunce. Hear the quote “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed” by ye olde Mahatma? Yes, well the U.S. alone wastes more than 40% of its food–and I think that’s even after it leaves the farms. 3,000 mile Caesar salad? Yeah, cut that stuff out and it’s no problem to feed 7 billion. It’s well-proven that intensive farming, say 1 human/acre radically increases yields as much as 8-fold. That’s not limited just to nice areas, as mob grazing radically increases yields in east Africa, just for one example. Mixed permaculture is also a win there, but is generally outlawed by the imported European culture via the law.
None of this is with GMOs either, which generally have been proven to have LOWER yields, and HIGHER costs, like pesticides, than their non-GMO, or even open-pollinated, counterparts. So Cargill is the exact last person you’d want to talk to to improve any of this. They ain’t paid to make YOU money, as many farmers have already discovered to their destruction.
Sobering that with such simple solutions, we actively want starvation, hardship, and war.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (AEP) has always been a waterboy, but when did he become such an ignorant baboon? I used to respect him as he brought real facts, even if his conclusion was generally the party line, i.e. the opposite of sense.
“China is trapped”? They are misstating their unemployment that is –gasp– really 6%? With 100M adults not in the workforce, if the US could cut their unemployment by 80% they might reach 6%. Numbers are numbers and economies have a lot of similarities, but China is NOT the west. They are not a neoliberal, democratic country, whatever that would mean anymore. As in the millennia-tradition of kingship, they can do anything they want, change any rules they want, print or remove any money they want, close any border they want, imprison anybody they want, and not experience the expectations we would have here in the west that the government has no legitimacy and should fall. They run on a different model, and we must respect that.
That said, let’s compare the collapse of China on western terms, as AEP suggests. They own the world’s factories, have a massive military, anti-ship EMP, anti-satellite, and ICBM nuclear weapons. They have a massive new trade deal and pipeline with a non-ocean direct feed to the world’s largest stable supply of oil and gas via Russia. They have a war chest in the US$ trillions and have bi-lateral non-dollar trade agreements approaching 150 nations worldwide. They have perhaps as much as 20,000 tonnes of gold, but at least 6,000 official and increasing rapidly. They have bought up commodity and food producers worldwide, including in Spain and the US. They bought Detroit, and parts of Ohio, Pittsburgh, and the Midwest. They own perhaps 2/3 of Manhattan commercial property. Sounds like they’re on the skids.
Debt levels? You mean compared to the EU, Greece, or the United States? Are you kidding me?
Now are they in trouble? Yes, probably. As is the rest of the world. But like the U.S in the Great Depression, who’s in the best position to weather this bad spell? Nations with huge debt, no factories, no food, no gold, worn-out or nonexistent militaries, and disintegrating trade and oil relationships, where any further repression is going to have serious social blowback like you see in Spain or Greece and break the very legitimacy of government? Or China, which is no worse off in civil unrest, but has more options and tools in the box?
China is in trouble, but make no mistake, they’re not the west.
