John Day
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John DayParticipant
I looked at a lot of the stories about the Papal Encyclical regarding our natural place in creation, and how we should respect it. (I’m not Catholic.)
Most of it was one-dimensional, like how Republican presidential hopefuls responded (awkwardly), or what real climate scientists say about it (about right).
The one piece that had best sought to lay out the specific points, with appropriate context turned up in Wired Magazine. (It is not at all like the silly title.)
https://www.wired.com/2015/06/popes-memo-climate-change-mind-blower/John DayParticipantSoros indicates where western financial elites want to draw the lines of global monetary order.
Split China away from Russia (and Iran, not said as such) by including the Renmenbi in the SDR, as that comes up for revision this fall. He is very harsh on Russia, and outright lies about Crimea and Ukraine.
Soros argues to let the Renmenbi into the SDR, and engage China fully in the current Bretton Woods (latest revision) framework, or risk military WW-3. That is disingenuous as what I believe he fears is a loss of his global financial order.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-17/global-disorder-reigns-george-soros-warns-washington-mend-relations-china-or-face-wo#comment-6209159
Interestingly, he paints the Neocon “Project for a New American Century” as a failed project, a thing of the past, now.June 18, 2015 at 12:53 pm in reply to: Greek Parliamentary Debt Committee Declares All Debt Illegal #21704John DayParticipantWar is a bad idea in a world of dwindling resources, and is most uncertain in it’s course, as well.
Financial elites need to preserve their system, and can let lower tier elites and upper middle class take the losses. That will mean the bubbles bursting, while the order remains intact.
The Greek taxpayers cannot pay the German taxpayers, but there is that WW-2 debt thing.
Really, the underlying problem is the massive debt bubble, which is beyond what can be serviced by economies.
Varoufakis has it right. First figure out how much service an economy can provide, then figure out how it should best be divided for the overall good.
All of Europe; all of the world is actually in this same position.
As was the case under FDR, the elites can maintain position, but will have to accept a lot of paper losses, and those in the 0.1% to top 10% range will bear the load.
The retirement fairy is dead, too, y’all.
All retirement accounts will be merged and everybody will get something, whatever the economies can bear.
The alternative really is disorder, and the elites know it, and do fear disorder, as is appropriate.John DayParticipantI looked at this Champion piece yesterday and was just disgusted. It’s like he wrote it on a tight schedule when he had a hangover, mean and just wrong, like the crap in Ukraine.
John DayParticipantStoneleigh has had a lot to say about “multiple competing claims on real wealth” since TAA started.
It sounds like that is the topic, Jeff. I think more than one of her posts and all of her lectures contain some of that message.John DayParticipantThe IMF political flexibility exhibited in Greece, with European TBTF banks is even less than the flexibility it is exhibiting in Ukraine.
The Onion is now the straightest-shooting news in this looking-glass world.
Here’s an example, Experts Agree…
https://www.theonion.com/article/experts-say-best-option-now-keeping-nation-comfort-50617John DayParticipantThe first strategy was the model on the sales floor.
It went out the door first, but the ad is still running.
It is good to hold up the advertisement in public and say, “I want this one you advertised”.
Actually, Varoufakis is the right guy to help the EU thorough massive debt restructuring, for all EU members.
The other finance ministers cannot bear to gaze in that direction.
Massive debt restructuring makes their entire class disgorge their wealth and privilege.John DayParticipantGail Tverberg, “Gail the Actuary” from The Oil Drum blog, has traveled to Cuba, and has her usual excellent level of analysis of energy, economics, and societal dynamics.
This is such a good find! (Cuba is opening up, and is lots closer than New Zealand.)
Cuba: Figuring Out Pieces of the Puzzle (Full Text)John DayParticipantBack in 2010, no real macroeconomic theory predicted a Greek return to growth, under the imposed conditions. The conditions were worsened by 2012 changes to the “bailout”.
The rationale given was NEVER CREDIBLE.
What if the purpose of the experiment was NEVER to see if it could improve Greek economy under prevailing macroeconomic conditions?
I believe that our shadowy puppet-masters, the 0.001% and the 0.01% who directly serve them are smart. It hurts, but they are probably smarter than I am. Our interests diverge, and I’m smart enough to see that. They lie to keep the herd moving in the same direction. I’m smart enough to see that. They shoot their guns and shout to spook the herd into sudden, rapid changes of direction. When do we get that again?
They overgraze the herd whenever possible, then massively cull the herd when overshoot leads to starvation, and that is called “war”. When do we get that again?
The global herds of people are getting quite different treatments since 9/11/01, and particularly since September 2008.
What if these smaller herds are being observed under experimental conditions?
It’s inevitable that the different conditions of herds will give different patterns of movement and survival and economy to different nation-states. It’s impractical to think this valuable information is not being studied intently, at great cost.
The Masters-of-the-Universe know no “moral” bounds, and see the limits of possibility from a very different vantage than we do.
WW-3 is always a viable policy tool.
What kinds of losses can be expected, under what kinds of conditions, and where, and when, and how will that affect chain of command?
Questions that big need really big models, as big as Greece, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Ukraine, and so on.
George Soros, coming of age as a brilliant Jewish boy in Fascist Budapest in WW-2, has insight into this sort of thing. He gave a warning recently. Who was warned? I’m not saying he’s our friend…John DayParticipant“Project Bookend” an in depth study by the Bank of England, was a top secret investigation of the implications and consequences to expect if the UK exits the Euro, and likely different scenarios for doing that to minimize blowback. The existence of this research got “accidentally” emailed to The Guardian UK newspaper.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit?CMP=share_btn_twJohn DayParticipant@Polistra,
I’ve had that thought.
And maybe we are being fattened up for something by our herders.
Maybe (more likely) it is just good for business. We are programmed to like certain combinations of fat, sugar and salt, which are addictive and don’t satisfy our craving for the nutrients in fresh fruits, vegetables and the flesh of naturally fed animals from the wild.
It’s like the science behind making cigarettes more addictive.
Still, it’s not one or the other. There is a Zeitgeist, I believe.John DayParticipantFor threatening two financial carrion birds with one stone, I vote STYLE POINTS for BERNIE!
John DayParticipantYes, this is the critical point in the game, where the deal is being sweetened, and it comes down to 2 players, not 3, to put the Grexit referendum to the people, in such a way as to satisfy the back-benchers, and pressure the EU to satisfy the Greek voter just-enough…
Masterly played, Yanis, masterfully played, now just step back and let it unfold.John DayParticipantI thought I had mostly seen it all in the variations on Tiny Houses, mainly bounded by RV trailer regulations for US roads. The top can be about 13 ft off the ground, and it has to be under 8.5 ft wide when traveling. Most folks keep them to about 24 ft long for practical reasons, but they can be longer.
Here is something more than 2 standard deviations from the mean for this kind of endeavor, and it truly is an impressive expression of vision, attention to detail, persistence, and that form-following-function can also express as art. 11:30 video, pics and text. The creators don’t get to talk much, which is a shame. An engineer, an acrobat, and their baby, somewhere in New Zealand (I’m guessing North Island).John DayParticipant@TheTrivium4TW
Everybody wants to know how to preserve wealth going into massive wealth destruction.
“Wealth” means the ability to command what you want to be done, and the “right” to certain physical properties. When the fuel runs low, and supply chains don’t work, and people break ranks and pick winners and losers, what is “wealth” then, and where is it located?
Electronic money allows the masters of the universe to take a bit and then a bit more from everybody, and to starve all those who don’t participate.
How do you think that will play out?
I think it will be subject to collapse, and parallel, physical currencies will prevail.
It could be really ugly for awhile, maybe longer than you and I will live through.
WTF is “wealth”?I’m gardening, and I know how inadequate it is, but it is something.John DayParticipantPope Francis giving this talk to Congress in late September is likely to be during another market crash, and a more useful message than Hank Paulson gave.
Time to turn over a new leaf, share the austerity, and keep one’s head…John DayParticipantIt was the fake Bin Laden that Obama blew the story on.
The real Osama Bin Laden died 12/13/01.
https://humansarefree.com/2011/05/proof-that-osama-bin-laden-was-cia-and.htmlMay 11, 2015 at 3:16 am in reply to: Will Austerity Be the Straw that Breaks the EU AND the UK? #21011John DayParticipantThe EROEI for large political unions has been a losing proposition for awhile, but the realization of that has been lacking, and their credit has remained good, so…
Every level of organization within a system has it’s costs of support.
Costs exceed political will to pay now.John DayParticipantThe antarctic ice sheet has lost a lot of mass in the past decade.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150430191140.htmJohn DayParticipantGood points, Nelson. (By the way, we liked Nelson, NZ a lot when we biked around South Island in 2006, as a family.)
There is the adaptation of the person/family/group, which takes some years also. It comes with making the physical changes, then discovering that one actually has a lot to learn about gardening, and the back and knee problems are a limiting factor.John DayParticipantThis buys more time for transition than each little kick of the debt can does, but requires major changes in EU finance to even begin, maybe impossible changes.
It is an alternative, which must now be addressed.
Good.John DayParticipant“Punctuated Equilibrium” is the evolutionary model where resources feed an expansion and mixing of genetic traits in “good times”, then select the most successful combinations in “bad times” of 90% die off, and so on.
It’s harsh. It’s easier to die quickly. Accepting the hard assignment before it is assigned, and with foreknowledge of the implications, probably contributes to survival of linked subsets of the gene pool, like families with foresightful grandparents.
sigh…John DayParticipantHi Ilargi,
Recall the story from January, where a female Greek physician was working secretly as a prostitute to make ends meet?
It got a lot of attention, and I think you put it up, too.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30914039
The Greek medical system is breaking. Nobody is paying doctors and nobody is getting taken care of unless they get shot in the liver or something.
This medical society couldn’t afford a decent public relations firm, and presented their case in such a way as to fall on their own swords, where they now squirm, impaled…
Sad.
I have worked very hard for very little in 1992 -1994, as a small town country doctor, sometimes the only doctor at the only hospital in Caldwell County Texas, doing ER, OB, inpatient and outpatient 24:7. It was the hardest I ever worked, and the least I ever earned, but I think it’s worse in Greece. I just fulfilled my contract and learned an important lesson, and went and did a Family Practice OB fellowship, which paid more and was less work.
Since then I have still worked in public health, but gotten paid pretty good money to take care of poor people. I don’t expect it to last, but I’m grateful.John DayParticipantPlant Okra and black eyed peas, if you haven’t already, and squash, watermelons and sweet potatoes. Summer’s coming.
“Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves.”
(Prob’ly save the last bullet for yerself, too, though…)John DayParticipantNo Job?
Grow Food.
It’s the human way, after all.
This is simplistic, but it can be brought up to speed and be self perpetuating, once in place.
Growing your own food is valuable employment.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay15/cash-gardens5-15.html
Sadly, it does weaken the control of the oligarchs a bit, but it is also stabilizing to society.John DayParticipantThis is from The Vineyard of the Saker.
It is the best strategic analysis I’ve read of the current global struggle to retain American global hegemony, and the different interests of Russia, embodied in Vladimir Putin.
If Ukraine cannot be won by the US, as a power hostile to Russia, on Russia’s border, then it must be so destroyed when it is lost, that Russia is bled dry to rebuild it.
This cannot be done while sparing Europe. Europe will be deeply wounded in this, and then where will Europeans turn? Various ways? To Eurasian Union?What does Putin want? A major analysis by Rostislav Ishchenko (must read!)
John DayParticipantIf I have this right, Chinese banking is so big and growing so fast that it will take over the world, just as it collapses from such vast accumulation of leveraged bad loans, which funded ghost cities, roads to nowhere, and graft. The reduction of reserve ratios somehow makes this all better and worse simultaneously.
Is that close?John DayParticipantThe “plastic only” decree for Greek resort islands may lead in various directions. Certainly, bankers want no more cash, just credit instruments, managed electronically by banks. All risk and expense falls upon the pawns.
It also sets the stage for Bitcoin…John DayParticipant@ jal:
Capitalism has sealed borders, so that desperate people generate profits.
For $10,000 an American, Brit, German, Kiwi or Aussie can fly anywhere and be pleasantly received, but not an upper middle class Eritrean woman of marrying age.John DayParticipantJohn DayParticipantThanks Hotrod :”…the reason why hate radio is so successful. As a retired minister, his answer was priceless, “Because there is always somebody lower than you are.”
The immigration “problem” is from exploitation of people based upon natural and artificial boundaries, by which they are confined.
Yes, global capitalism excels at this, and has since the East India Companies.
Militarism supports this bottling-up of desperation and suffering.
Logical argument declares that “we” must reduce populations of “them” to spare planetary life, to save it from, well, us.
The global capitalist-militarist-hegemonic empire, ruled by our shadowy puppet masters, whoever and wherever they are, can afford some humanitarian PR.
It cannot afford justice, compassion, brotherhood or humanity.
“Be the change”, brothers and sisters. There is not more to do.
Contribute to the victims in Nepal, Syrian refugees, Yemeni refugees and any other need you see, if you can. Right? That’s good.
Mainly help another person grow food, use less, tune up a bike, and so on, Right again?
“There is no political solution…” Name that song 🙂John DayParticipant@Diogenes
Keeping tabs on the Wal Mart closings.
Still not explained are they?
All that plumbing to be done, and no plumbers involved…John DayParticipantDestroying Libyan fishing vessels seems like a win-win situation for global multinational capitalism.
The problem has been addressed by creating and punishing an external bad-guy, who was competing with your trawlers for dwindling fish catches, anyway.
The military gets to look useful and decisive and stuff.
The containment of human desperation behind borders is the prime driver for global capitalism. The higher the concentration gradient of suffering and poverty, the higher the profits.
The Clintons got the first gold-mine permit in Haiti for 50 years.
https://investmentwatchblog.com/there-are-only-2-gold-mining-permits-in-haiti-the-first-one-in-50-years-just-got-issued-to-presidential-candidate-hillary-clintons-brother-guess-paying-for-that-was-where-our-disaster-donations-di/#3GgLtzk3herTsCzf.99John DayParticipantGlobal reset when one of the critical bluffs fails, like EU or China, then war with Russia to enable reset?
How totally insane is this for anybody without a 30 year reservation in a deep, hardened bunker?
Grow food. Collaborate with other humans.
Meditate/Pray. Become spiritually conversant. It’s in us all.John DayParticipantJeb Bush: Warmongering Neoconservative Criminal.
Hillary Clinton: Warmongering Neoliberal Criminal.
The choice is clear, right?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-15/enormous-differences-between-jeb-bush-and-hillary-clintonJohn DayParticipantMeet Josephine Witt, the girl who got the jump on Mario Draghi.
Good pictures.
What a spirited filly! 🙂
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-15/meet-mario-draghis-attacker-her-own-wordsApril 16, 2015 at 3:23 am in reply to: The Weak Suffer What They Must: Yanis and the End of Europe #20510John DayParticipant@Charles Alban,
Thanks for the Marinaleda article. It is righteous.
@jal
None will be spared by the changes.
I want to help as I can, so that I may die easily.
Growing food, year #2 now.@Dr. Diablo
Yep, reset is spreading here in Uh’merica, too.
It started in 2007, right?John DayParticipant“Demand will peak way ahead of supply”, at $100/bbl, of course, and for reasons well-explored here, since a $25/bbl economy cannot be sustained at $100/bbl energy cost.
It was a “clever” statement at the time. This year looks like the peak. The Saudis have a strategy, as must China and Russia and the US/NATO/Israeli empire.
It is clear that containable destructive war at the periphery to punish non-compliance, and destroy demand, while maintaining global capitalist structures is the imperial plan.
Other plans may show more subtlety.
Grow food, resist imperialism!John DayParticipant(“Inconceivable” , that GE Capital could be considered systemically important after changes, since most action outside US. Heh, heh, heh, Princess Bride reference. Good one 🙂
April 8, 2015 at 4:49 pm in reply to: Russia’s Central Bank Governor Is Way Smarter Than Ours #20397John DayParticipantI love strong, competent women.
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