Dr. Diablo
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“the United States Constitution is quite amorphous.” I know these guys are in Canada, but have they read the Constitution? It’s pretty clear, pretty static, and has methods to update it if necessary. The problem is no one in America has followed this, or mostly any other law in 140+ years. Maybe we should look into the consistent failure to enforce the law on the wealthy and influential?
Except Nixon didn’t have to go off the gold standard. A return to honest policy is always an option.
Although technically correct, Smith is missing the point. Gold doesn’t back the reserve currency, gold IS the reserve currency. We’ve 100 years forgotten, but it’s not “$35 dollars for an ounce of gold”, it’s the US$ = 1/35th ounce. If the gold price goes up, it goes up against what? The dollar IS gold. They are the same thing. An old dollar under the classic (not broken post WWI model) standard said on the face, “redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury”. It was a warehouse receipt. Because the Treasury had the gold. So your warehouse receipt changed compared to the box it referenced? People go in the box to add and remove weight? No.
Back to his example, so the dollar, or quatloo, or gold moves up against what? Presumably other currencies that are NOT backed by actual gold, are fractionally reserved, etc. So whose problem is that? Slobovia, who is responsible, referencing only assets they own, or the rest-of-world, who act like pirates? Not to say large nations won’t try to rock the gold price to steal Slobovia’s wealth, (or invade, like Syria, Libya, Ukraine) because they always did throughout history, but that’s not a flaw in the gold standard, that’s a flaw in mankind, and the reason gold standards eventually break.
Does a gold standard slow economies to a non-bubble, or as in the Middle Ages, even an infinitely sustainable pace? Yes. But wouldn’t the lack of bubbles and a system that would not collapse without compounding growth infinitely accelerating be a good thing? Something to recommend it when millions are dying of boom-bust and at our resource limits? That the present system would fail if we receded from insanity to sustainability only highlights that the existing system is the failure, not the gold system, and also that regardless of our feelings on gold, it will inevitably fail. If so, why villianize a system that proved to work? Is it to support a system that clearly doesn’t? Or a system like Bitcoin that only theoretically will?
In both cases, the most predictible outcome ever. I still can’t figure out what tower pundits are locked in that they don’t see it coming.
The Fed is the business association and lobbying arm of the member banks. The product that business sells is debt. So, when you have a business association working effectively, have sales been up, or down?
Does Stockman forget that without a stimulus the U.S. will be in a “fiscal bloodbath” as well? That is to say, without enormous stimulus we are definitely going to collapse, but with it we only probably will? That prognosis sounds to me like Trump is not especially involved or relevant to the argument here. Unless you think if Sanders or Ryan were in, there could be no stimulus and no collapse with the country gutted and the stock market at 100 year overvaluation. I don’t think he’s disingenuine, but he ought to look at what he’s saying. With a $20T official and probably $200T implied debt, it’s never going to get repaid. That’s because since Reagan, it was never meant to be repaid. By 1986 it was already a given we must default, and that was the path that was specifically chosen, according to Fed Whitepapers, back as far as the 70’s.
So Stockman: it’s not 1980 anymore. You can’t have fiscal austerity unless you want to run like Greece for 100 years. Since we’re going to default anyway, and were always going to since, say 1979, why not try to rack up that last home improvement on the credit card? If we fail, we’ll only go where we were going anyway.
As typical, the NY Times is insane, out of touch, and false. While the impulse of the article that reasonable housing prices are good for some is overwhelmingly true (i.e. pricing out the entire population can’t be a good thing) it just racks up a wide variety of omissions and nonsense. Gosh, NYT, how did Americans all at once START thinking about their homes as investments? Would it be because after 200 years of remembering how to grant safe loans, banks under Greenspan suddenly opened unlimited cheap money and no credit checks that observers said would cause a boom and inevitable bust that could possibly take down the entire United States? That bubble? Remember that? It was in “The Big Short,” you might watch it, it uses little words.
Housing shortage? I know you can get good drugs in NYC but you shouldn’t write when you’re high. There are something like 20M empty homes in the U.S. There are something like 66,000 empty mansions — not homes, but mansions — in Vancouver alone, an example of your “major cities”. This is likewise true of a lot of the hot markets. Their answer to too many empty homes? Build more homes. Golly, Grey Lady, how can housing prices be so high with so much supply? Could it be because our worldwide trade relationships have been increasingly out of whack for over 40 years, such that China and other foreign buyers are outbidding the market in a desperate attempt to diversify? 2/3 of commercial real estate in some places like NYC are reputed to be owned by the Chinese, in an example of turning major American cities into protected foreign colonies, like Hong Kong was for the British. Would the answer to that be changing our currency, outsourcing, and trade relationships like NAFTA and WTO? (Flip to section on how looking into these things makes DJT crazy as a bat)
By the way, so why DIDN’T capitalism work back in ’08 and have housing prices fall the way you suggest? Certainly they were trying to. In fact, why did the government gave $23T – $100T specifically IN ORDER to keep housing pricing too high for anybody to afford? That was Paulson’s pitch to Congress (the one he immediately betrayed). Could it be because – and a block from Wall St. you should know this – that home prices are the major collateral for the entire banking system? And if that collateral were correctly priced, every U.S. bank would be liquidated and replaced by their smaller, less stupid, mid-sized competitors? And then Sachs, Morgan and the boys would lose all their money and power over Congress? Maybe that would be why they taxed U.S. citizens $100T in order to keep the people’s costs and prices too high for their own benefit? So they wouldn’t have to take a haircut and be embarrassed as law and capitalism require? You might look into this, since you just watched a major U.S. movie about it and it was discussed intensively for over 10 years.
Business and jobs are booming? Anywhere? Yeah, I can see that as retail numbers and energy usage continue to fall, with 100M out of the workforce and 20% on food stamps. But okay, I’ll bite: if cities like S.F. and NYC are the only places not in a crippling Depression, then how did the entire 2,000 miles of Flyoverland suddenly become so economically depressed that the only option for 40 states is to emigrate from their homelands and move to Atlanta, NYC, and D.C.? Would that be because of extractive, colonial policies that harvest the wealth in the red, rural U.S. and move it to, say, you and your neighborhood on Wall St.? And that might make some people mad they’re being systematically murdered and resist in ways both bad and good? (again turn to page on how DJT is crazy and the only reason people voted for him is because they suddenly realized they’re racist.)
I could go on, but why? Fake, fake, fake. And we’re never going to know what’s going on or what to do about it until we — that’s you NYT, the “Paper of Record” — stop lying about unemployment, economy, trade, currency, politics, bailouts, payoffs, and basically everything.
I think that’s why when the U.S. said “America First”, the rest of the world said, “Oh thank God! Does that mean you’ll stop stomping around ‘helping’ now? How fast can you start thinking of only yourselves and leave us alone?”
But that did not seem to be the response. Strange, as it seemed pretty logical. And by the way, what Americans voted for 6 times. Clinton to get rid of HW Bush, W to get rid of Clinton*, Obama to get rid of W, and Trump to get rid of Obama. But as often said, no matter who we vote for, what they say, or what party they’re from, the result is the same: more illegal foriegn wars. Americans don’t like the world and we don’t really understand it, so we only ask our leaders to stay home, ignore the world, and fix a house that’s been collapsing faster than Detroit. Apparently that’s just too hard to understand. Maybe that’s why they now picked a President who uses very. small. words. Perhaps he can beat them with his tiny words until they get the message. IYI and shades of Taleb. But from the look of the intense, directed, shrieking attempt to force Trump into war with Russia, they aren’t getting it yet. Look for more beatings until morale improves.
*Not kidding about W. Hard as it is to believe now, his election platform was a smaller government getting out of people’s lives, balanced budget, and no foreign intervention. Likewise, seems forgotten Clinton was at war in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Africa among other places. Obama’s 26,000 bombs/year speaks for itself and apparently there may be thousands more airstrikes they forgot to count. After 26,000 bombs/year for 16 years why would those 7 nations mad be at us? It can’t be. Everyone loves us.
My suspicion is that they realize the U.S. is going to come unglued almost immediately. Treasuries, US$, bank reset, doesn’t matter what. In fact, it’s a miracle often commented on that such damage was tolerated and papered over up to now; virtually no critics expected to succeed at a 17-year delaying action. If any of that reset occurs though, the U.S. will immediately have a $500B-ish deficit that the world will no longer feel like filling just to get pretty faces printed on funny paper. At that point, the oil-import problem will be paramount, and even if collapsing demand were to level oil usage, any oil exports would be wildly appreciated for desperately needed world cash. End result: they may feel time has more than run out, and while it may be bad PR for water for thousands may be at risk by putting the pipeline in, hundreds of thousands may die throughout the U.S. if they don’t get that pipe turned on by March. That’s what happens when you destroy your nation for 40 years: you end up with a choice of decisions that are all bad, every one of which someone will rightfully protest. You tell me what to do in such a case.
Same with manufacturing, as the U.S. now makes essentially nothing. If the trade is about to be shut off, you have something like 6-12 months to re-industrialize and come to manufacturing independence or hundreds of thousands will die of privation as their clothes, medicine, and furnace parts stop coming. This is why there is an almost irrational hurry to drive businesses back into the U.S. Like the cars we don’t need, or the otherwise bizarre pharmaceutical industry notice last week. Irrational except they are privy to information we don’t have or we as outsiders don’t treat as functional, production, engineering problem that has time, resource, and system limits. When you look at it that way–that the system has reached beyond the extreme and needs to be pulled back, to exhale for a change–then you might feel Trump is moving too slowly and being too gently, not the opposite. Depends on what you assume to be true. But in a reality-optional world, I just believe in puppies and unicorns and the goodness of all men to keep providing us infinite goods for nothing.
Party on, Wayne!
Der Spiegel was good in catching that he didn’t really understand America: like nearly everyone, he probably never bothered to leave the city biodome bubbles and I dunno, look? And he’s right, it is very complicated and full of contradictions. But it’s also somewhat clear that he still doesn’t understand it, not really. But then, does anyone? Reminds me of today’s quote (made into a misquote naturally):
“The media…still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president. They should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,”Still not listening. But to be honest, the noise out there is a mass of confusion, and making sense of it is very, very difficult. But for humanity’s sake, we should trying, not still misattributing and misquoting.
You’ll probably catch this tomorrow, but Mish on how oil is pivotal factor in the rise and decline of world exports:
What’s Behind the Collapse in Global Exports in the US, Japan, EU, Emerging Markets?Probably has a number of implications, but as expected, on the face, oil, energy, is outside “economics” a primary driver of human activity.
This is how it was all set up before any of the present players were born. Field A: depleting access to easy oil fields. Field B: compounding interest in a debt-system.
Will there be any place to go? No, but each area has their own advantages. America still has enormous, almost indescribable open land. But Europe has the old patterns carved into the infrastructure of Florence, with centralized, walkable cities, railways, enduring architecture, and much of the surrounding open land preserved. If that seems too slender a thread, read on French market gardening in the 1890s. A truly enormous, unimaginable amount of food was grown within the city limits and horse-reach around. It had to be. That technology was set aside, but it still exists in pockets and on paper. We don’t have to go back, but we certainly will have to go forward in a different way. Strip mining the capital assets to paper over the EROI losses will only work so long.
And the worst is the lying, which makes people disoriented and unprepared for what could be just a deep cultural change to a pattern that gives us meaning and we all like better.
Say, isn’t it illegal to run a charity (NGO) without regular audits and accounting? Perhaps someone should look into this. Joe’s Tapas Stand has to account for his E1,000/wk or go to jail. Why not the NGOs?
Age may indeed be the critical factor here. Russia is the enemy, taking over all of Europe? Making Europe attack each other instead of cooperating? How clever they are to get Europeans to obey when none of them credit the Russian perspective and there are still no lines of influence between Europe and Russia! To believe Russia is the enemy you’d have to be over 50 years old, because half the population on earth doesn’t even remember the Soviet Union. They’re something in the history books, like the Napoleonic wars. At what point is persistence of vision finally updated?
The older eastern Europeans may indeed remember Communism as the source of their cruel oppression, but the younger ones, who also matter, only remember the EU as the source of their oppression and despair. What has the EU done for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Greece? They are overwhelmingly the poorest per-capita states yet they pay the EU bailouts for Germany and France. Decades of involvement that was supposed to turn them to modern states find them still treated as extractive colonial states, unimportant, unrecognized, disrespected. They are the catastrophe. And it’s not that the Warsaw era wasn’t an oppression, but that oppression ended long ago and we cannot go back. This oppression is happening RIGHT NOW, to honest people who are dying in Greece, Italy, Spain, even in France, Britain, and Sweden. This oppression and catastrophe we CAN do something about, because it’s happening right now, and like the Warsaw or Nazi eras, it is also being denied and supported by apologists of all sorts, who are happy to let the other guy die for the greater good. Well I say if the other guy dies, it isn’t good, greater or lesser, it’s unequivocally bad, it is unjust, and I won’t overlook it because there was once a time, long before I was born, that was worse. Tell that to the population freezing to death in unheated flats tonight how great the EU is, while their leaders take more pay and expenses, send another Trillion to the banks, and cut off more trade, more access to energy and raw materials, that would employ and feed them all.
I don’t have to remember the anxiety of nuclear standoff, because I’ve lived the anxiety of the existing European war, in Serbia, in Ukraine, because I’ve watched the 20-50% unemployment stretch on for years while the people flee to nowhere and commit suicide in hopelessness and despair to support a handful of men in Davos who are already too wealthy. I’ve had the anxiety not of worrying about a mere standoff, but watching them attempt to cause pan-European nuclear war by proudly, openly attacking Libya, Syria, and Egypt, knowing Russia would get involved. I’ve watched them attempt to start a European nuclear war in Ukraine, over and over, month after month, to justify NATO and permit a counterattack, I’ve watched NATO member Turkey ambush Russian planes then shoot down the ambulance helicopter in defiance of all international norms. I’ve watched them assassinate 2, 3, 4 Russian diplomats, bomb Russian embassies, and call the Russians aggressive in the middle of multiple peace negotiations Russia alone was promoting.
Why would I need to remember some far-off danger only old men recall? It was only this week Israel shelled Damascus, only this week Nuland was attempting to re-start the civil war in Cyprus, and only this week both the US and Germany set up an official ministry of truth that avows Russia — who no one talks to and everyone hates — is so influential that they fixed the elections in the U.S., Germany, France, Britain and Italy. Luckily, I don’t have to fear the past, because for better or worse, it is gone. However, when a new attempt to start WWIII with Russia occurs every day and twice on Sunday — which will inevitably make all Europe the nuclear battlefield — it would be foolish not to fear and oppose it. We are today’s men with today’s challenges. Now is the time that needs us. Let’s focus our efforts here.
There’s so much wrong, misleading, and opposite I’d have to go through it line by line — and every article one reads is like this. But I’ll spare you all: #Fakenews. Fake in this case because while it states some of the facts, it wildly mischaracterizes virtually all of them, while pointedly avoiding many others that wouldn’t support their narrow perspective.
“Test of Trump’s loyalties”? What on the great green earth are you talking about? Is there a Soviet bloc somewhere? If the US trades with and neglects to nuke Russia does it necessarily follow that Trump must and will boycott and nuke Europe? Just last week we were talking to, trading with, and not nuking Russia and all was well back then. If the U.S. stops attacking 17 nations and pulls bases from a few of the 100+ nations they occupy, would the world end? Russia has the GDP of Italy and somehow they’re a threat to Europe and North America combined? What a strange and irrational insecurity worthy of a mental ward. Why would 28 united, proud, soveriegn countries give a hoot what the U.S. does or if Trump talks to them first or third or never? Are they concerned they can’t be slavish enough to please him? They have the GDP and currency equal to the U.S. And if they don’t like him and don’t want to work with him, don’t! Why the concern? Isn’t this their opportunity to follow and prove the merit their diverging values?
As per yesterday’s chart, the EU has cruelly savaged all of Europe in service of Germany, yet they are the good guys, and Putin, who has barely pulled his nation out of the 3rd world despair is a cruel oppressor? All functional EU positions are appointed and the parliment has zero legal accountability yet Putin is undemocratic? At some point words fail me. He’s not exactly a hero, but then neither is Merkel, Obama, Bush, or Draghi, all with a dark, blood soaked history behind them. How did we get to a point where thought itself has been suspended? Was it the perpetual redefinition and hollowing of words where now war is peace, attacking is defending, right is wrong and falsehood is in the service of truth? I honestly don’t know, but it shows we need a change more than ever, and fast.
I’m continually amazed that you can sit across the ocean, immersed in the European outlook on things, and repeatedly understand Trump with such clarity. Because we can’t. Even here, people have got themselves worked up into quite a lather about it. That is to say, if you don’t believe Trump is Hilter, PolPot, and Stalin all wrapped in one, you’re a Trumpeteer, taking checks from Putin…personally, as was recently reported. #notfakenews. This might be, how do you say, a rather extreme outlook on reality? That only the furthest extremes imaginable are possible and credible, yet it’s impossible for anything to exist in the great span between? Is it television that has created this perspective on life? I find it disorienting.
In the real world, as you say, Trump is just some 70-year-old guy who’s run some businesses well and lost others. He’s said some good things and some bad things. He has smart policies and dumb policies, and like other Presidents doesn’t run everything, control everything, either in theory or in fact. He is constrained by the Congress, the courts, the military, the press, and the public, as have all others before him. He is the public spokesman for a more complex and less public power block, as Presidents have been since before U.S. Grant. Like other Presidents, he is not in control, as a dictator. If anything, he is less in control than his several predessessors.
The main things he’s constrained by will be the 45-year setup in the economy, the energy supply, and the reality of the shape of the “economy” that has developed around that evaporating reality. Presidents can do their better or worse with that situation, but it wasn’t theirs to make. The party was had, all money spent, all accounts indebted, leaving the entire catastrophe to us, the young, and then complain bitterly about us, our ingratitude and lack of work. It’s only ours to cope with 20% unemployment with 20% less pay while they collect pensions and fraudulent stock market gains.
The challenge the president has will most likely be a collapsing bond market, a currency re-set and the resulting frozen economy, the re-balancing of world influence among Asia, Europe, and the US, and the dislocation of energy supplies, leading to the dislocation of goods that supply mankind. This is what we’re talking about when finally–FINALLY–someone can speak the words “NATO is obsolete”. NATO exists solely as a counterweight to a Soviet Empire that vanished 26 years ago. That we (or say the older generation) can suffer a collective gasp only shows how fake the reality is that we’re living in, and how long that lie has been perpetuated, and how deeply it is believed.
That the EU is still arguing their pre-eminence even AFTER Brexit, while the Italeave and Frexit are already a foregone conclusion can only reinforce how diabolically fake, how suicidally out of touch they are. “They” being virtually everyone who speaks: the Atlantic Media, the experts, the leaders, the billionaires, the generals, the bankers, the markets, the spies. Apparently in the new world, reality doesn’t exist until someone says it does, who says the words that were more than obvious in the Greek crisis, the EU banking crisis, back all the way to the entirely unelected, undemocratic construction of the non-Union itself. Like other psychotics, they are only angry — and provably violent — when someone confronts how transparently illusionary their beliefs are.
It’s quite a job. Not one a narcissist would take, to be the most reviled man on earth, no longer a billionaire, possibly assassinated, children shunned and discredited, and cutting the inaguration parties from dozens to one in order to do more work you’ll only be reviled for. No wonder so few have taken the banner. More than grasping the nettle, it’s like volunteering to be beaten with one. For no clear reason.
The reality is they’re obsolete. NATO, the CIA, markets, world influence, are all going to disappear, because things are going to decentralize. Trump has nothing to do with any of it. It was all slated to happen before he was born.
The answer to Mises scale is, or can be, actual Federalism, not the lip-service of Federalism we have to justify universal, almost dictatorial central power we have today. Because in today’s world, what balance does Guiana or Catalonia or Montenegro have against Exxon-Mobil or Samsung? So you envision a world where every “nation” is smaller than the top 100 companies? That does not seem conducive to enforcing property rights, as you can ask any small—or even middle-sized nation on earth, who is forced to seek shelter in a powerful state, as Syria with Russia, Greece with the EU, or 100 other nations with the US.
P.S., glad to see Germany sending their immigrants back to Greece, who can so easily care for them, and the NGOs sending no aid whatsoever to either Syria OR Greece, while trumpeting all those nation’s human failures in the media. They care so much for the children of Aleppo, the west has refused ALL support there. This lets us all know who they are and what they truly stand for. Bonus question: if the NGOs aren’t helping anyone, what are they doing with all our money?
Wait a minute: cheering for union is possible, but cheering for EU independence is not possible? I think I see what’s going on here. In other words, you may have opinions, so long as they are in perfect alignment with mine. Otherwise you’re a violent/madman/traitor/insert scary word here. That’s the Western value of free speech, where we all voice our opinions in a public discourse in order to come to an agreement on policy a majority can live with. Unless your opinions are different in any way from mine, Mr. Corbyn, then you’re a traitor. What is this, the Troll school of democracy? If I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you?
This may be the case with Brexit, where the PEOPLE appear able to have a grown up discussion on Brexit, but clearly their representatives are not. And also not able to comprehend they are employees of the people, not the masters. That’s what we’d expect from, and is the duty of, the House of Lords, not the Commons. But that’s okay, as in America, they are only revealing themselves, and who they really are.
“Controversial” is a feature of the audience, not the speaker. There seems to be a lot going on lately which the speaker sees as boring and normal that the audience comes unhinged over.
Tell me if I’m mistaken, but wasn’t it said that the 35-page report was written during the election by a troll on 4chan to test what level of transparent nonsense Hillary supporters would believe, then stand back and point fingers at them for being gullible? And then, when the writer saw this transparent, idiotic, completely-made-up nonsense was being picked up by the media during the election, he thought it was funnier to let it run?
Then, Republicans (later Democrats) had paid a high-priced MI6 ex-agent to find dirt on Trump, so he read some buzz on chat boards and sold it to them? Those English mansions don’t buy themselves, you know! From there, John McCain has admitted he handed it to the FBI as evidence, whereupon it became the hidden, top secret report the CIA was using but wouldn’t admit to reporters, although though Intelligence secrecy being what it is, they all knew about and hinted at? (“October surprise,” “you’re not printing dirt on Trump,” etc.)
So basically, we have a case where a cellar-dweller on 4chan wrote wild, transparently false, easily disprovable trollop, and the GOP, and DNC literally bought it with donors’ hard cash. The CIA not only printed it and stood behind it, but now they want affirmations of complete confidence in the intelligence community and the directors personally after doing so, for clearly political reasons? (certainly not for factual ones) Telling Trump HE’S the one who should be embarassed, not go off on loose information, and watch himself?
Then CNN, after doing all they could to pump the story without actually printing it (suggesting it was true but unconfirmed) does everything but put Trump in a headlock on the podium of his own press conference to question Trump’s “attack” on their completely fake troll-fiction, then makes a story instead about how the President-elect doesn’t like to be shouted down in his own office by known liars?
And so, a week later, still no one is talking about the CIA’s top source is the fictional ramblings of a basement troll, and is therefore more-than-justifiably in the sights for a round of firings, if not complete erasure, as we already have 16 other intelligence agencies, 14 of which did not agree?
Or am I reading this wrong? Even if the 4Chan part is untrue, would that make all that much difference when the published report is proven false with the slightest review?
So unprecedented, says the yellowcake man in the corner with weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, meeting on a park bench in Prague. Oh wait, that was them too. But never mind about how the CIA “didn’t have any evidence” that “got us into” an “illegal world war”, “killing millions,” and “bankrupting the country”, we’re too busy being mad at Trump. Because he is mad at an agency that appears to use any falsehood whatsoever for political gain, and at the media who helps it all happen.
But I’m not smart like the important people and I have trouble following things. Did I miss something?
I don’t wish to be mean, but it’s terrible in Athens right now in so many ways. The weather is just another crisis. So as the war in Syria seems to be winding down and Syria desperately needs people to rebuild, are there plans and NGO funding to return Syrians back home, the way they so helpfully funded more than a million to leave? The best solution is for Syrians to create a new, prosperous, safe, and WARM Syria. Greece cannot stand the strain.
Now if only they could stop the pin-headed attempt to control Libyan oil using a puppet government, Libyans could go home too and return to being the most prosperous state in Africa. You would think wildly cutting support costs by helping refugees and Europeans alike would be something we could all agree on.
Giving free money to a village increased their spending on food and medicine? And when you hand the money to women, they spend it? Riveting! Why didn’t we think of this before???
One thing to bring up with UBI, is although we’re discussing who we’ve giving the money TO (the unemployed and people who were getting assistance already) we have to address where the money is coming FROM. That is, if you’re eating free tacos and burning firewood, somebody else has to MAKE the tacos and cut the firewood, and hand it to you for nothing. Do those people also have rights and an economic welfare to worry about or just the recipients? If you had a village of 40 people this would become clear: if one guy is sitting around the fire eating, then some other guy has to hoe in the fields and cut wood all day. Meanwhile, in a functional system they would both be helping all they can.
But never mind, we’ve long since established that money is actually grown by elves on the Keebler money tree.
I bet you’re correct, the real reason for UBI is to quick-establish a digital-only world currency.
Apparently the reference is to Century III, Quatrain 81 “The great shameless, audacious bawler. He will be elected governor of the army: The boldness of his contention. The bridge broken, the city faint from fear.”
Added to a wildly different chapter and verse: “The false trumpet concealing madness will cause Byzantium to change its laws,” … “From Egypt there will go forth a man who wants the edict withdrawn, changing money and standards.” Century 1, 40
I’m a bit lost how one can grab two different lines from different books, with vague descriptions, where the specifics, “Egypt”, “Byzantium” and “Governor of the Army” who deals only with a “City”, are completely off, and come to a conclusion it has to do with an American who is at very least a General where French convention would use the word “king” and would affect nations. Classic Rorschach, as notoriously vague Nostradamus is famous for.
We’ve already had at least a 16 year war, under Democrats and Republicans alike, aggressively supported by all Liberal and Conservative stripes throughout the western world, so I don’t know what he’d be “starting.” Something between 2.5 and 5 million people have been killed, involving maybe 30 countries, if you hadn’t noticed. So we’d only need to finish the mess long since started who knows when, maybe as Armstrong says into 2024 which would be perfect. However, may I suggest we start incriminations against those who have already caused 5 million deaths, not with a guy who as far as we know has yet to kill anyone.
So true. In addition, a core reason robots produce products is that they just do it better — faster, more accurately, with fewer mistakes and real 24/7 capacity utilization. However, there’s a lot going on there. Robots also require extremely accurate input stream. Plastic feeds that don’t vary. Parts that are the same, equal quality, and arrive on time. Is that going to be a given in a post peak oil world, or one with continual disruptions? How about one where the output needs suddenly change, for example where we created too many cars when car loans collapse and ought to make lawn mowers or generators instead? Presently robots need a setup that requires a lot of identical production, which means inputs and also worldwide shipping outputs, predictability, and open market reach. Also banking as it’s capex intensive, with huge, smooth advance loans.
Last is an entirely different problem, and probably the one the Pentagon boys who fronted Trump are really focused on: in the inevitable repudiation of the US and US$, the nation will be cut off from world goods with a minimum $40B/year trade deficit. Once broken, the US$ will fall every day until it reaches equilibrium, and outside goods will get too expensive for Americans — PCs, car parts, shoes — which is what they’ve been fighting in a world war with millions dead and +10 countries invaded. But here it doesn’t matter one bit who creates the goods, robots or people, only that we can make something for ourselves rather than live barefoot in caves. Otherwise the nation (and Pentagon) will be helpless and defenseless. Claiming it will create US jobs, which it would, a little, is just a selling point. But keep in mind, if you at least start, and add the now-inevitable disruptions, you may add a lot more people than expected, as robots and automation are not well-suited to a chaotic, disrupted, localized world, where inputs and outputs are constantly changing.
Thank you for your well-reasoned response. Although there are a score of things wrong with the Vox article, particularly concerning the difference in outlook and authority among Conservatives, we certainly agree that the problem is discerning what or whom to trust, because in the new absence of people–and authorities–who aren’t caught lying, all the time, about pretty much everything, data sets and even reality itself cannot be agreed upon, much to all our trouble.
Science is one of our most vaunted and verifiable institutions, which makes it their incredible fraud and carelessness the premier example for the trouble with authorities. Science, which is supposed to be experimentally verifiable and peer-reviewed flip-flops so much that it would be easy to put out an encyclopedia a year for all the “popular” studies that were disproved or critically revised. There are a steady stream of scandals involving paid-for science, doctorates having fabricated their entire thesis work, as well as computers generating 200 word-soup articles which are published without anyone having read them, much less checked them for anything like, oh, the sentences made sense. And this is science, a provable field!
When confronted with such an appalling state, science has quite indefensibly doubled-down as saying it’s not that bad, these are single cases, and so on. That is to say, even in a field where truth is everything and repeatability is god, there is no move to punish liars or advocate for proof. Yet they wish to have the same reputation, the same authority, amongst all our tribes they once did. This is illogical. The only question is which groups will withdraw their group belief in their institution first and who will withdraw it later on, an answer which we now know. Conservatives, or better put, Libertarians, are the ones who most question institutions, and withdraw consent until trust can be re-established. (Technically, Conservatives must believe in institutions despite their faults, as per Monarchy, Church, customs, etc. Words mean things and should be used accurately to get an accurate view, Vox)
And again, this is science. How about media, who as I noted have been increasingly lying until you could come up with 50 easily provable lies a day? Or the governments and their economists, which of course Ilargi daily points out or actively debunks, as their lies continue to impoverish every person on earth, for which thousands die, for example in Greece? You can’t just call conformation bias or let’s give the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, the different ease with which a group believes lies, or disbelieves everything puts them on wildly different tracks, with wildly different views: two cultures inhabiting the same geographic nations, leading to a heated friction.
The ideal solution of course is to stop lying. Reform the institutions, drive out the cheaters, punish fraud, and restore trust and morality. But then those who are profiting, who owe their careers, their power, their fortunes, their very lives, to lying and cheating, would then lose power, influence, and quite likely all be arrested, imprisoned, and possibly hung. So you’re not going to see anyone reform themselves. At all. As all other times in history, it will be forced upon them as liars and the incorrect worldview they espouse, will cease to work, because by definition, if it worked, it would be accurate and the true. It, and they, will be replaced with something that works better and is therefore more true, over the continual and violent resistance of the liars. That’s just the way it goes.
This is what the Automatic Earth has been saying and recording for years, highlighting that it’s a political problem (of power) which will play out in economics first (and the real world increasingly on). But you won’t find consensus, because it’s the accuracy and authority of the institutions that is being fought over. At my age, there’s never been a day in my life that authorities haven’t bare-faced lied to me. Everything possible has been extracted, and they are at the maximum–provably so within the economic data and “populist” rebellion. Other generations have had different experiences. It’s a shame to differ in beliefs, but when a life-long liar speaks, you suspect and check his word.
How about the slightest attempt at proof? Even a half-hearted, fabricated, spurious, false proof? Anything? Because right now, we literally have nothing but “appeal to authority”, the most common logical fallacy. Even the head of the 17(??) intelligence agencies publically told the CIA to knock it off. The CIA who was neck-deep in Syria and the only one promoting anything–without proof–until they finally got some guy in the FBI to bark once. When called on it, they as ever doubled down by saying it was Putin personally. And how on earth could anyone even claim to know that? Were they in his office? By the way, what “hacking” is supposed to have occurred? They altered the votes inside the voting machines? Like in the paper-ballot states Stein recounted? The Election computers Georgia says the DHS hacked? Or did Russia release information from a guy whose email password was “Password”? Or off a completely unprotected private server doing state business whose very existence is a crime? Because if there hadn’t been 30,000+ felonies listed there, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Hey, maybe it’s just me, but in my America, before you create another major diplomatic incident in yet another attempt to start a nuclear first-strike WWIII — and/or say perhaps two Russian diplomats get murdered in public — you make your case to the American people, which requires at least one piece of evidence. But in the new world FIRST we punish people we disagree with…personally, by name, not nations or administrations…THEN we look for evidence and have due process. If we someday find time.
All this from the people who brought you such hits as “Saddam is throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait”, “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda”, “the war in Iraq will pay for itself” Scud missiles falling on CNN’s green screen, Brian “my helicopter was taking fire” Williams, Clapper’s “The NSA is not spying on the American people”, “The DNC did not skew the California Primary” (fired), “the DNC was not involved in election fraud” (fired), “There is no warrantless wiretapping” (looking at you AT&T) and the StingRay cell intercept does not exist/is not used by police. But that’s not all! Also, there is no SR-71 Blackbird, “we are not involved in Iran-Contra,” “we never interfere in other nation’s elections,” and “Remember the Maine.” I mean, why would anyone doubt an authority with a record like that?
Humor me. One shred of evidence before you destroy the entire world and everything on it. Try.
Update: they released a 13-page report on hacker “Grizzly”, which the DHS itself makes clear they provide no assurances of, and reserves the right to be entirely fabricated. So Joe, you got you wish, they did in very fact provide the security disclaimer “Should be read as fiction.”
You can’t make this stuff up, but you can die from it.
That article on cold seems excessively silly: cold of 18f in Chicago is beyond normal this time of year, and 43f is quite warm. There’s nothing “drastic” about cold, in the winter, in North America. I know they were discussing a “massive storm” across the “whole country” that will “cause chaos” on weather.com, but the name of that storm is “winter” and it happens every year between December and March. You may have noticed. Weather in the center of the continent regularly has extremes of 70f to 0f, sometimes in 24 hours, and has since men kept records. I can’t speak to the Arctic situation but the weather situation of North America this year couldn’t be more normal if you tried.
I know you won’t believe this, but can you believe that China has an aircraft carrier off the Chinese coast and are doing exercises IN THE OCEAN??? I know, right? I read that sailing while landing jets on an aircraft carrier is a sign of unmitigated hostility that smacks of a sneak invasion of South East Asia.
And the American media is the only one sending up the daily alarm! And stopping WWIII !!
…Just passing the word before they’re suddenly within 5,000 miles of us and invade. With their one ship. Within sight of their own coast.Not very sure about this. So as a nacient fascist, he is actively hiring people who will make sure the trains DON’T run on time? That is, he wants an all-powerful government to run badly and be less effective in dominating the people? That doesn’t scan for me.
From my perspective, it’s just what has been revealed, in wikileaks and other inside battles: Deep State CIA has been displaced by Deep State Pentagon. The Pentagon was purged in record numbers and methods over the last 8 years, and now the Pentagon seems to be planning the same for the Alphabets. But the CIA is not supposed to be running the government and foriegn policy, so we may not mind seeing them cut down a size. Keeping in mind that it’s going to take tough, harsh, perhaps brutal action to cut the CIA and return to civilian control — a danger advertised since Eisenhower — the U.S. is also not a military government. But this better explains how Trump got in and who he represents. –Neither side represents liberty, the people, or rule of law, so we can set that aside right away. But can you see the situation in these terms, and what path our forces and power blocs should follow to return to our values? Because when you have an internal civil war — as reported on by the L.A. Times, with CIA-backers shooting at Pentagon-backers in Syria — NOTHING is going to be pretty. NO ONE is going to your lily-whites. So let’s all try to play the hand we inhereted with intelligence, restraint, and forethought.
“China subsequently sent a bomber … over the contested South China Sea.”
Oh noes. China flew a plane in international airspace? Whatever shall we do? And thanks to Trump they put bases on islands they were already putting bases on? You know, the islands they’ve been on since 500A.D., when Europeans were still swinging from trees? As a firm show of … doing what they were already doing, which the Philippines and Malaysia now agree with?
By the way, our business in the South China Sea? Because that’s where Seattle is? No wait, it’s 5,445 miles from us. Clearly, that’s why we should determine what China should do in a sea named “China”. When they fly in international airspace. With planes. Provocative.
I’d go on, but life now beggars satire. They just had this same sensation last month when Russia — get this — was sailing in the North Sea!! Can you believe it? Russia. In the north! In International waters! Then…and I kid you not…they steamed peacefully through the ENGLISH CHANNEL! WTF? I mean, following 300 years of maritime precedent? Aggressive. Amirite?
Just for fun, can post tomorrow on the breathless new NY Times piece. That is, after gushing over hiring Politico’s Glenn “Don’t tell everyone I’m a hack” Thrush, because what we do now with discredited, “hack” journalists is promote them to the Times! Turns out — and you won’t believe this — that the Russian Fake News purpetrators are the NYT itself! Becoming an “instrument of Russian intelligence.” Who knew? We are now accidentally hacking ourselves. Sounds aggressive. Should we bomb us? Premptively? Or should we wait until we attack us?
So how did the NYTimes become a Russian agent? By “publish[ing] multiple stories citing the D.N.C. and Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks.” That is to say as a journalist, one becomes a Russian agent by printing the truth. You are therefore a True American(TM) whenever you do NOT print the truth. QED.
I’m a bit lost now. Since by their own admission the NY Times has been a Russian mouthpiece, how do I trust its article avowing they are a Russian mouthpiece? Should I not trust NBC and CNN either? Should I cancel my subscription? What about when they said Clinton was Mother Mary and Trump was the Antichrist and there was nothing to see in her 30,000 emails selling Uranium interests to the Russians while taking $300M in Saudi money which is the definition of a foreign power was influencing the election? Was that also a lie? Now they want backsies on the election and do the last year all over again. I’m sure everyone will be into that.
So. Confused.
Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you goAs I often point out, we’re nowhere near the carrying capacity of the earth. All the humans would fit into a space the size of Texas. Even in Japan–arguably massively overpopulated–animals come down to the streets from the nearby land.
If everyone lives like Al Gore, then yes, there won’t be enough. But if everyone lives like a Zen monk, then there would be more, far more than enough, and plenty of love to restore the land and animals as well. This is a mental illness human have, never having enough, but it’s more complicated than that: for 500,000 years, we lived without — and without wanting to — consume everything. Even if you claim only modern man, all of North America was a verifiable paradise, where literal birds came down for the taking and literal fish jumped into boats. The shores were black with seals, the forest unending from Maine to Ohio. This is not a “man” thing. It isn’t “humans”, it isn’t even “oil”, as the resources were there then to exploit, but they didn’t exploit even the first of them. All that is nonsense, meant to make us hate and kill each other for the greater good, as “it’s only logical” to kill a couple, maybe 4 billion of us, and live a little lighter. Rot. Stuff and nonsense meant to keep us away from the real cause.
The real cause is the incentive system. All systems engineers know this: you get more of what you incentivize. You can fix, or destroy, any system with faulty incentives. Why did the ’08 crash happen? Why after 2-400 years of lending, did they suddenly forget how to lend? Because the incentive system was hijacked, with offloading risk, money-printing, no enforcement, and the Greenspan put. So where did this earth-consuming cancer start? Ohio? Zaire? Mongolia? Germany? No, the middle east, in Babylon, best we can tell. Seeing that, what part of it was establishing the earth-eating destruction? Far as we can tell, the monetary system, reinforcing the political power system; they devour their enemies and expand, and like any cancer or empire, they must always find and consume more, or die.
So refining what’s said above that may not be heard in the fullness it deserves. Not humans. Not too late. Humans don’t WANT to consume the earth, that’s totally, painfully, slanderously false. Most people HATE the present system with furious abandon, as it’s un-human. As you can see lately, they are taking another pitch at breaking it even if it harms them, even though there is terrible risk in halting it suddenly.
All you have to do is change the system incentives and human life will return to being human, with animals and the earth part of us again.
Endless things here. Stockman calls for an immediate stock crash with 10x the money rushing out of bonds and into the rising US$? Yes, someday, but not while that firehose is running.
After pointing out the phony rally, created on fake, printed money and poor accounting, we wag fingers at China. How dare they do what we’re doing! Don’t they know that money printing, debt inflating, and fraudulent accounting will end badly?? …You don’t say… What we have to realize at this point is ALL accounting is fantasy we just make up. Us and them and everyone. However, the actual things you build with debt you just made up in your head and wrote down one afternoon are real. So when the fiction — as in a fantasy novel — vanishes, because it was never real, no one is harmed, exactly. You just wake up from the VR illusion of your tiny blinking screen and see what’s really in your country; farms? factories? oil? economic interconnections, relationships, and habits? …Of course not really that easy, but once you accept that accounting, which is supposed to DESCRIBE reality, has no more reality than “Star Wars: Rogue One”, then it doesn’t matter WHAT it says, what is reported, or what markets say. There are no markets, just illusion, like a movie screen in front of Zappa’s brick wall at the back of the theatre. We do it, they do it, everybody does it. You’re just reporting movie reviews of what fictional characters said and believed in a fictional world.
You couldn’t represent this better than the “Living within your means con” from Real News site ABC. So if you have two potatoes in the cupboard you should eat four? What fresh hell is this? Or no, we citizens can’t, but when we collectivize as GOVERNMENT, we can hand out four million potatoes when there are only two million in warehouses. Taleb’s IYI class, where, despite that all the accounting we report is total fiction, above, we still think that MONEY, that is, little numbers we write down, are actual WEALTH, i.e. potatoes. Or electric grids, or houses, or weapons, or machine tools, or water, or whatever. One is instantly convertible to the other.
Hold on, professor glasses here: THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY. You IYI’s. The map is a representation of the territory. By the way your brain, what you think, is not reality, either. It’s a poor representation of reality, and you don’t just say things, like Karl Rove’s famous quote, and “create reality” by thinking ‘potatoes’ in your mind. That’s not being powerful, that’s psychosis. You might notice from the results it produces.
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
And you wonder why yesterday Raul said that insiders were both clueless and helpless? Because as lawyers they literally believe that reality is created, like God, simply by thinking and saying things. That is, reality is, or can be changed to be, whatever they’re thinking in that 5 minute period, and the opposite in the next 5 minutes, and there’s no contradiction at all, like the media’s been doing, or governments, or the BLS. But this is literally madness, literally cannot be tolerated without complete destruction, and so 800 years ago the Lords, the Oligarchs of their day, put King John in a ditch and made him sign the Magna Charta so he would stop saying, “The Law is in my Mouth.”
No John, no WaPo, no Janet, no Karl, reality is not created when you SAY something is true. There is a reality out there, and in that reality there are ACTUAL things, like potatoes, that have ACTUAL limits, and where there are ACTUAL means you must ACTUALLY live within. And generally socialist societies discover this the hard way. Ask Venezuela.
They keep repeating the breathless trope about computer experts finding “hacking” (Russian, ‘natch), the elections in Michigan and Wisconsin. One problem: Michigan is a paper-voting state. So…how exactly did they determine MI is “hacked” when the process was on paper? Why? How? What? Nevermind, we’re all reality-optional today. Then when Stein says on national TV that they had no evidence whatsoever except her ‘feels’, trope goes nowhere. Such is the state of the news.
For those overseas wondering about our nonsensical Electoral College, history lesson: The U.S. is supposed to be a union of sovereign nations, bound together slightly stronger than a Confederacy, but where the Union level should only need to do a few things, like National Defense. Being 13 totally different nations of different sizes, outlooks, histories, desires, there was a serious problem with voting for the national representatives: it was thought inevitable that large states like Virginia, or possibly an alliance of states, like Pennsylvania and New York, would simply combine to exclusive power, and dominate and run roughshod over the smaller or outsider states. Then the Union would fail, as some states would be unrepresented and leave. Worse, it would be the one thing the Founders feared most: Democracy. That is, the 51% would run over the rights and property of the 49%
As you can see if you try for yourself, there isn’t really any good solution to this problem. Large states will have a disproportionate power, and if they didn’t you’d have a tyranny of a small states controlling the people in a large state. So what did they do? What the whole system is and always was: they hammered out a tolerable compromise. Instead of voting per man or per state, they made the Electoral College which roughly reflected the number of Senators + Representatives in Congress. That way even the smallest states had 3. Since the present U.S. population should have like 100 Congressmen per state, there’s a lot of arcana here, but the idea is the same even if it’s mostly overrun by the far larger number of Electors than was originally envisioned.
Even so, the original plan works somewhat like intended, even if watered down: the smaller (today less populous) states in Flyoverland, are disproportionally represented in terms of their Presidential voting power. If there were a direct popular vote, no one would visit 39 of the states nor represent them in policy, as they basically already don’t. As we very nearly saw, those states would then rebel and secede against a system that did not represent them. The Union would fall in a bloody civil war as “Democracy” would indeed try to steal the world of the 49% to favor the 51%, more or less as it has does today, only worse. Although not settled, the present election and perception of a turn at the wheelhouse has forestalled that rebellion and perhaps will preserve the Union yet.
Anyway, far from being an arcane, incomprehensible relic of the 18th century, we find it showing forethought and the intended function. Nevertheless we revisit the original compromise: is it fair to override the popular will? And if we don’t, how can we prevent a populous minority from enslaving their countrymen? And we try our best to show goodwill.
Herbert Hoover was Commerce Secretary under Warren Harding and continued under Calvin Coolidge. Before that, the US Food Administration. I’d call that “Public Office.” Not trying to be pedantic here, but you can’t just make up whatever facts you like to suit your prospective narrative. Maybe we’ll call it “Trumpening the narrative” since made-up facts seem to be a journalistic requirement concerning him. But let’s look deeper.
“It has been suggested that Herbert Hoover was the best Secretary of Commerce in United States history” -wiki
Golly, why? Because he served under a massively debt-inflationary speculative stock/economy bubble. Everyone likes it when free money (courtesy of the new Fed) is handed out to everyone, especially after the Great Depression of 1873-96, now long forgot. So anyway, everyone loves you in a never-ending boom.
Oh wait–actually Harding/Hoover presided over the worst stock market crash in US history, the Panic of 1921.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2%80%9321
https://fee.org/articles/the-depression-youve-never-heard-of-1920-1921/
GDP dropped 7% and prices fell 18% in 18 months while stocks were cut by nearly half. Government spending was savaged, rates soared. As Commerce Secretary, Hoover begged to intervene and stop the ruin of the young nation, but was voted down: speculators were liquidated, banks failed, businesses were ruined, unemployment soared. …And 18 months later, the nation emerged restored and ran into the Roaring 20’s. By contrast, saving our system has run into a 16-year Depression since 2001, most of my working life as an employee, meaning wages, interest, and opportunity I can never get back, houses never bought, families never formed, careers never progressed, ideas never created. Markets can tolerate a 16 year delay, but human lives cannot. In the last 8 years, GDP has never reached 3% despite $10 Trillion in spending and shameless number-rigging hiding an unemployment probably exceeding 25%. If we’d done a 1921, it would have been over already.So then in 1930, Hoover had a chance to have it his way. He intervened in the new Crash of ‘29, following the Keynesian theory of offsetting the Depression with a 40% increase in Gov’t spending, continuing to run massive deficits with the RFC (a New Deal plan), and used $1B to support the banks and commerce. It worsened everything. FDR ran him out of office on the solid anti-war, balanced-budget platform he’s known for today. What? Roosevelt lied to get into office? How can this be? And he is known for doubling down on all of Hoover’s failed policies and kept the Depression going for almost 20 years, instead of trying Harding’s ’21 Depression plan? You mean the same way Obama doubled down on all of George Bush’s policies and failures? History’s funny that way.
Anyway, having only the common-knowledge version of it I understand. Simply making up facts that 10 seconds on Wikipedia can fix, I can’t. Fake News: it’s true, it really IS everywhere.
Fake news alert:
“Every round number on the index hits the news cycle hard, largely because there is so little real news out there.” –Marketwatch
Exscrews me? Yeah, I noticed how there’s been hardly any news this past year, especially leading up to Nov 9. Hardly worth coming into work anymore.
“A small number of influential Republicans in the Senate are threatening to block appointments to Trump’s administration…” –Reuters
Newsflash: the GOP has ALWAYS opposed Trump. You might have noticed, except there “hadn’t been any news.” Dog Bites Man.
“Economists are too detached from the real world and have failed to learn from the financial crisis, insisting on using mathematical models which do not reflect reality, …The public has lost faith in economists since the credit crunch…” –Telegraph
Ditto. It’s only been true for 16 years. Or since 1976 if you count the complete failure of the Keynesians to account for Stagflation. Same thing, 40 years, no one changes a thing? I take it back: maybe that IS news they can look into. Why would a theory discredited for over 40 years not be discarded? Qui Bono?
“Mario Monti, who headed a technocratic [viz. unelected dictatorial] government between 2011 and 2013, said he expected there to be no early ballot whatever happens and said Italy should prioritize stability rather than rushing into another vote. “In case the ‘No’ were to win, I would expect first of all Mr Renzi to stay on after all,” –Bloomberg
So, says a technocrat that has no standing and nobody likes, if he loses the vote, the PM should just go on doing more of what lost the vote, and break all his promises? No comment on this, Bloomberg, all systems normal? Nevermind—these days “when it’s serious you have to lie”, break all your promises, and take no consequences, it IS normal, expected, even. Dog Bites Man again.
“Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, … is deemed a terrorist organization by the EU and United States. –Reuters
Hey, aren’t these the guys we’re arming to the teeth against ISIS? Didn’t the U.S., U.K. and France build open military bases inside Syria creating a prospective Kurdish breakaway state? And Turkey doesn’t like or trust their allies who arms and builds military bases for their enemies, attempts to overthrow their government, after treating them like punks for 16 years of empty EU promises? Yeah, Reuters, why is Turkey acting so weird all of a sudden?
“US President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he has an open mind about pulling out of world climate accords” –Yahoo
You mean the de-facto treaty that is invalid because it was never approved by the U.S. Senate? In other words, (like the Iran treaty) the agreement that doesn’t legally exist? That accord? So he’s going to pull out of an agreement we never actually made? Isn’t that like “Dog that doesn’t exist Bites Man who wasn’t there”?
This is what you come to when for 20 years everything you say is a lie: nothing makes sense anymore.
“Barack Obama on fake news: ‘We have problems’ if we can’t tell the difference…” -Guardian
Then maybe you shouldn’t have started lying and legally authorized open propaganda via your own authorative news agencies. Now no one believes you. Nor should they. See above: You can’t even quote a narrow slice of hand-picked articles without being contaminated.
Don’t be hasty: they handed him the economy wired to explode. We’ve got the largest bond dislocations in 30 years already and emerging markets hammered. Since bonds are 10x larger than stocks, money fleeing bonds could drive stocks to dizzying heights. Add that they won’t rush into EM, China, or the EU, and you have a recipe for dizzying heights for US Stocks — but only the core DOW, S&P, as the economy here is dead.
But wait! That’s not all! With the US$ rising as the core currency, and China, India, being unsafe, with the EU about to Italeave, money should rush into any US assets, US$, driving it higher still. Sound great? It’s not! It’s called massive Deflation. The US$ rises and rises until the US cracks under the strain and defaults, or the world cracks under the strain and rejects the US$ as core currency.
So translation: you ain’t seen crazy yet.
The debt is never going to be repaid because it can’t. It was never meant to be. The plan since 1970 was to abuse it as much as possible, then default and swap to a new system. So, no, debt can’t rise faster than income, but no one cares. It was always meant to fail. Trump is no exception to this rule, and we can all agrue about whether he can get better negotiating terms in the upcoming bankruptcy. But time is up.
“Who could have imagined in 2006 that such an outlandish billionaire like Donald Trump could become president of the United States? Who would have believed that the British would leave the European Union?
Who? Literally everyone on the Alt-Media. Just like the .com and ’08 crisis. Just like the phony war stories and how stating 10 new wars would not calm the world on a route to prosperity. Just like how they said the bailouts would not work and Greece would be devastated and not fixed. Literally everyone but the main media.
Next line, “Who would think populists would take the German popular vote?” Um, Everyone? A popular vote is popular; it’s a logical tautology. And speaking of, in a democracy, what is “populism”? A way to say that all the things we were doing before had no popular mandate and were shoved down on the electors? Why would we complain that in a democracy, the people are being heard? Because it would prevent harvesting the people for our profit?
“It is a fact that globalization and free trade have increased global prosperity, but they have also increased inequality”
Then they didn’t actually create prosperity then, did it? If no one but the already wealthy participated in it, it probably created poverty. You might want to look into that: it could help explain this confusion about voters and world events.
Speigel, you’re falling apart.
“What a tangled web we weave / when first we practice to decieve.”
