[John Day]

Somewhere between this description, and what we have in the US, is the right place for medical spending and provisioning.
I say that as an American physician for 29 years.

[John Day]

Hi Greenpa,
Gotcha on the Paul Wellstone reference.
It was determined to be another murder-suicide, wasn’t it? (Bad joke, but you know what I mean.)
Varoufakis says he wants the best deal for all the citizens of Europe, and I believe him.
Having a deep insight into game theory, he will see that the best overall solution for the majority is something which can be sold, will have good political appeal, and will be terribly prone to sabotage for parties seeking a little gain, at a huge loss for most others.
He first has to sell it to exactly those parties who assume that they will get a gain, while others lose. Perhaps he has a plan which they look at and think, “that will sell well, and I see just how to turn it to my benefit”.
Widespread debt jubilee is in the interests of all, and those who run the game would naturally expect to profit greatly from assymetries in debt forgiveness/repudiation.
He may be 2 moves farther into this game than somebody like Osborne or Draghi.
We may see what he has to offer. I hope he lives that long, lives to sell the new game to the current players, then survives the announcement of the trick which forces actual compliance.

[John Day]

@ Raleigh,
Thanks for the opportunity to compliment you on this thread.
Good stuff. No disagreement from me.

[John Day]

Varoufakis is probably THE economist to broker a format of “new deal” that will give the best average outcome for all Europeans, and by implication, for the reset of western finance.
That puts him at VERY high risk of sudden accidental death, doesn’t it

[John Day]

Let me float a transitional solution for Greece, the EU and global finance.
Rules can’t be “broken” by banks, so they will need to be changed by politicians.
As part of the EU QE, the Greek Central Bank gets approved to conjure Euros to buy ALL the Greek government bonds being held by the Troika.
Others must be allowed to take their turns at this, of course.
Going forward, Greece will balance her budget on taxes and fees, the old-fashioned way.
Others will do the same after they monetize their debt.
The plan Lord Keynes presented at Bretton Wood in 1944 (from this article posted here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/30/syriza-finance-minister-big-idea-will-germany-accept-it ) to recycle surpluses from creditor to debtor nations, allowing a gold system to function well as a more minor buffer for trade, could then be instated, and the 1944 system, allowing, but not demanding growth and contraction, would work.
This could go global.
There would be a one time monetization of debt, then something more akin to Islamic banking, where investments in a venture pay off as the venture fares, with a long term link, and no transfer of all risk to the working-partner from the financial partner.
It could be done without war, and it would cut rentiers from the system, but most of them could find useful tasks somewhere, in time.
The fact of one generation supporting it’s parents and grandparents would be recognized as a fact. That has to happen. We need to deal with it as such.
It’s gonna’ be hard.
Charles Hugh Smith has it worked out how he can comfortably retire at 91. https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan15/retirement1-15.html

[John Day]

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
Varoufakis and Tsipras have begun the crystallization of the Zeitgeist into a heretofore thwarted mass movement of humanity.
I hope they live to see next Christmas. Really, I do.
It looks like Podemos in Spain is also animated by the same spirit. Spanish elections…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-31/greek-social-contagion-tens-thousands-rally-support-spains-anti-austerity-podemos-pa

You know, it doesn’t have to be Greece rolling over to stay in an EU controlled by the global money-power, or Grexit.
There is the potential solution of changing the global financial system, beginning with “the shock of 2015”.
That has a ring to it, doesn’t it?

[John Day]

Yay, Greenpa is BACK!
🙂

[John Day]

@TheTrivium4TW
By “overal structure of the financial system”, I did not mean structure of debt based money, which I specifically said has to be given up and replaced with money which reflects goods already produced, as was the historical situation. The illusion of paying-back-with-interest in a declining global energy scenario is doomed.
I simply meant that there are institutions and channels of finance, which would cause much greater devastation if broken. Banks and e-commerce are quite useful to our survival.

[John Day]

The question is that of how to balance the inevitable “anticipated losses”, while maintaining the overall structure of the financial system.
“Anticipated losses” is used to denote loss of anticipated-future-production, the promise of which is the foundation of our current monetary system.
Many “promises” must be broken going forward, which will destroy faith in “promissory notes”. There is a loss of faith in the system gestating now.
The ability to provide necessities of life, and the ability to enforce lies through violence are the foundations of “political economy”.
Let’s assume that the power to enforce lies through violence is the stouter of these two pillars now.
Those in power would rather enforce lies through violence than provide necessities of life for the proletariat when times get tough. That ends up killing the elites by crashing the system, as in French, Russian and Chinese (fairly) recent history.
Assuming some degree of pragmatic rational self interest, of a sort seen in Soros and (shudder) Kissinger, there will have to be damage-control at all levels.
Roosevelt did such damage-control with the “new deal”.
The austerity has lowered birth rates in Greece, and the creeping austerity since 1976 has lowered birth rates in the industrialized world with access to birth control, since then. That’s necessary in a no-growth world. Japan, China, Germany and many others are well into birth rates below replacement, and so is the US, but there’s immigration here.
The monetary system fails before the production system, based on the structure of things.
The failure this time goes all the way from the farthest promises ever of future production, back to the historical position of money representing existing, real, productive assets.
What percentage collapse is that? 80%? You tell me.
It depends on whether a strip club in Reno is such an asset or not, doesn’t it?
Farmland which produces without chemical inputs or irrigation is the gold standard, I think. The more temperate the clime, the better.
Russia, Iran and China are close enough to their recent resets to hold stability-options dear. They all hold precious metals, and commodities like oil, coal, food, factories, with a back-up financial system waiting in the wings. They are developing alternatives openly.
We have to assume that alternatives are developing secretly in western finance.
Western finance gets to design the social experiments like Arab Spring, color revolutions, Libyan civil war, breakup of Yugoslavia and now the Greek experiment. Iceland was an odd outlier, as I see it.
How can haircuts be applied without crashing the system, while maintaining the power structure and avoiding overt and violent regime-change?

[John Day]

What about that “not South Stream” gas pipeline going from Russia to Turkey to the Greek border?
There is a lot of restructuring about t happen.
There are reasons for ongoing partnership and cooperation all through Europe, but the overhanging debt of a system based on exponentially-growth, now in contraction must be written off, globally, and the financial elites need to take complete losses first.
Can the Eurasian Union help with this restructuring?
I can’t see anything but a return to the gold standard, and transfers of physical gold, putting a floor under this fully rational collapse of trust.

[John Day]

“The way it’s been since 1913”
Professor, and other “commentariat” members, David Stockman put together an excellent view of what has happened with wars and finance since 1913, and in quite a clever way, blaming it all on Woodrow Wilson.
This twist is quite odd, and yet his essay pointing out the details of the slaughters of “The Great War” and the sequel, and the inevitable lurches out of “sound money” and sound fiscal policy of nations is exquisite in it’s detail.
I know Wilson was played, and this is common knowledge.
Stockman has put something very insightful out there, and with a lot of circulation.
He knows how this went down, but could he print it that way?

The Epochal Consequences Of Woodrow Wilson’s War

[John Day]

Hey Ilargi,

You posted that Eureka Colorado picture before, and some others from that series, maybe back in 2008-2009.
Good pics, though…
🙂

John

[John Day]

I’ve appreciated your labors for all but the first few months of those 7 years.

SALUTE!

[John Day]

I have thought a lot about deflation, which is probably the only way that we humans can actually retreat from growth”. I seek to mitigate what is coming, however I can, for whoever I can.
This issue of nitrogen and phosphorous cycles being blown-up has presented in algal bloom, “red tide” occurances, but the degree of ecosystem threat has never been presented as so high, because nitrogen and phosphorous are so rapidly incorporated into biomass.
At least that’s how I’ve looked at it.
I wonder if we will see further fleshing out of the scientific basis for Professor Carpenter’s hypothesis.

[John Day]

Democratic Confederalism is the social format in semi-autonomous Kurdish areas of Northern Syria, bordering Turkey. The new-improved PKK says “live and let live”, unless you are ISIS attacking Kurdish towns. Gender equality s practiced, embraced, not just preached (All dead ISIS soldiers are invited to comment here.)

The Small Miracle You Haven’t Heard About Amid Syria’s Carnage

[John Day]

Keep an eye on whodunnit with the French attacks.
Who is about to spring a big project like the Afghanistan/Iraq warfest that followed 9/11?
https://www.workers.org/articles/2015/01/13/charlie-hebdo-free-press-racism/
Bibi Netanyahu has his upcoming election sewed-up. How Big?
What enemy is still rich enough to attack, and weak enough to make it safe?

[John Day]

@ V. Arnold,
The Elites are winning with every “terrorist” attack.
They steal resources and slaughter innocents far away, and seclude themselves.
The “blowback” hits the citizens of the countries whose military, industry and finance they control.
The fearful citizens support the elites more completely, and give up freedoms.
Rinse and repeat.

[John Day]

Hi Slatzman,
That link is from September, and the author is under the mistaken impression that there was no Ukrainian fighter near MH-17, and also under the impression that MH-17 was shot down by a BUK missile from the ground, which is not born out by the physical evidence of the cockpit metal. That metal has both entry and exit holes on all of the pieces, not possible with a single projectile exploding once, but consistent with machine gun fire from a plausible attack approach.

[John Day]

“Frexit” from the Euro as Marine LePen’s star rises and reinstitution of death penalty in France gets France expelled from EU?
“Diabolical!”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/hebdo-fallout-greater-odds-frexit-marine-le-pens-star-rises.html

[John Day]

@ Professor…
“First by inflation, then by deflation…”
It has been what bankers have done over the centuries to hasten the inevitability of their owning everything, isn’t it?

[John Day]

All the suspects are dead in France.
Case Closed.
What seizure of property from Muslims are we about to see, and where?

[John Day]

The one “suspect” who saw he was wanted on his smart phone and turned himself in was in class at school when the operation was being carried out.

Dead Men Walking? French Police Release Photos of 2 Likely Patsies

Where did the 2 wanted 32 and 34 y/o brothers get all the training and info? They knew people’s names and operated efficiently, then got out quickly. This looks professional and high-budget. Who benefits? Anyone who wants to make war on Muslims in oil-bearing-regions has fresh support today.

GLADIO-Style: Deadly ‘Cartoon Jihad’ Attack Hits Charlie Hebdo Magazine in Paris

https://21stcenturywire.com/2015/01/07/paris-shooting-the-magazine-murders-at-charlie-hebdo-reveal-evidence-of-staging/

[John Day]

Germany blinked on Greek Debt:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-07/dax-surges-after-germany-unexpectedly-opens-door-greek-debt-negotiations

[John Day]

Charles Hugh Smith has an ideal companion piece on Assymetric Warfare in oil markets.
(I got the first comment on ZH, addressing the Large number of June $30 puts, which I got from an article about $20 puts, posted here.)
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan15/oil-war1-15.html

[John Day]

@Rapier
The US diplomat in the Wikipedia link is named as “John Day”, which s a relatively common name, though I was previously unaware of this person bearing “my” name, before reading it.

[John Day]

Here is an equalizing partial-solution to the odious Greek debt.
Odious debt can be legally repudiated under international law, such as when a dictator runs up a big bill, is deposed, and the people of the country rightfully refuse to pay what was never their choice to begin with.
What if something like $68 billion of Greek military weapons purchases, half from Germany, and half from other countries, for dry-docked submarines and useless tanks, were bought with borrowed money, due to billions of dollars in bribes to Greek officials involved in purchasing decisions?
Yeah, it sounds plausible, because it happened.

(Now, let’s get back to the argument that Greece was never really a member of financial union since it joined under false pretenses when Goldman cooked the books.)

[John Day]

Matt Taibbi looks at the NYPD work slowdown, which stops ticketing people for things like urinating in public, and only arrests people “when it is necessary”.
This lifting of the boot is what people want, and it seems to be the right thing, for wrong reasons, hitting NYC in the pocketbook with reduced fine-income from “zero-tolerancing” poor black folks.
What a tangled web, when the solution is instituted as a political attack.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-nypds-work-stoppage-is-surreal-20141231

[John Day]

Budget constrained Notre Dame in Paris couldn’t afford a huge Christmas tree, because the price went up to 80k Euros. “Isolated” Russia provided one, transported it to Paris, as a sign of lasting friendship. 🙂
https://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2014/12/01/joyeux-noel-from-russia-with-love

[John Day]

@ Pollistra,
That educational toy from 1983 USSR is a very well designed modular “breadboard”.
Every electronic tinkerer has to “breadboard” (yep, noun and verb) circuits, and as that goes on you develop systematic breadboard setups to speed your process. This is the result of that kind of activity. It is a direct gateway to electronic circuit design and revision.
I enjoyed your link. My creative energies have migrated out of analog electronics in recent years. Living efficiently in human, ecological, energetic, and resource terms really engages me these days. I still love vacuum tube electronics, but don’t spend my time there, like I used to.

[John Day]

William,
Thoughtful content there, Amigo.
Dmitry Orlov absolutely nails a character and behavioral analysis of essential traits of Anglo-American Imperialism. This may be the best piece of Orlov’s that I’ve seen.
It casts things in a clarifying historical context.
https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-imperial-collapse-playbook.html
Here is food for thought about “how to shrink the economy without crashing it”, by Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute. Food for thought, cud to chew…

How to Shrink the Economy without Crashing It: A Ten-Point Plan

[John Day]

Here is a good article looking at what the new Greek left, Syriza, may actually do if elected. There are lots of moving parts and historical precedents to consider.
https://truth-out.org/news/item/28263-syriza-from-radicalism-to-pragmatism-the-state-of-the-left-in-greece
I have to wonder if Greece will be jettisoned and publicly punished for what is inevitable, to teach the rest of the debt slaves a lesson.

[John Day]

Hi Koso_man,
It seems that all that money sitting idly in the accounts of big banks is cushion for the next collapse.
The bankers must be defended against consequences, and they do hold everybody’s money, so there’s a gun to every head.
Maybe I’m wrong… Happy New Year

[John Day]

Mr Market says 66% chance of Greek default. (“100% if you wait long enough”, says logic.)
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-31/greek-default-risk-soars-66-morgan-stanley-warns-ecb-may-be-unable-launch-qe#comment-5610220

[John Day]

Thanks for another year of good information, analysis and stylish presentation Ilargi and Stoneleigh.
I do miss the old days (reading since 2008) when the likes of El Gallinazo and Greenpa populated the comments section.
Sigh…
Manners and scholarship have declined in the comments sections everywhere.
I was too shy to enter a comment for years, for fear of seeming uninformed.
I guess that’s all over.
Happy New Year, Y’all!

[John Day]

Hi Statzman.
You might look through Zero Hedge to catch the latest MH-17 news.
I think you’ve been missing out since it happened, an alternate reality.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-24/russia-says-it-has-evidence-ukraine-military-defector-kiev-was-responsible-mh-17-cra

[John Day]

T.Boone Pickins says that Peak Oil WAS in 2005, and that the drop in oil prices is due to loss of global demand, as CNBC dittohead interviewer (younger, stronger) shouts him down, until Pickins tells him who the “expert” is.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-23/t-boone-pickens-rages-cnbc-i-am-expert-not-you-says-oil-down-due-weak-demand

Also: An airport-worker witness in the MH-17 shoot down says a Ukrainian fighter jet did it, leaving with air to air missiles, returning without them, names the pilot and quotes him.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-24/russia-says-it-has-evidence-ukraine-military-defector-kiev-was-responsible-mh-17-cra

[John Day]

Oh, Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has a very good complimentary (shorter) piece to this today.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/saudis-tell-shale-industry-will-break-plans-keep-pumping-even-20-barrel.html

[John Day]

Thank You Euan,
Even if each of us does not have the identical viewpoint, due to our different roles and expertise, we should value the analysis you have given, which is broadly applicable outside the UK.
In Texas, where I live, a lot of electric load comes from running air conditioning in the summer, when the sun shines, so solar helps match production and load.
There are lots of specific regional differences that have to be considered in reducing buffer and swing capacity expenses.
To some degree, load needs to learn to follow supply better, too.
Global warming may already have is baked to a crisp. Models diverge widely based on analysis of positive feedback loops.
This will be a hard transition, and I don’t know how hard, but I’m looking at the back yard turned into kitchen=garden, and I will bike 14 miles to work in a little while.
I’m seeking to adapt in anticipation of events now beginning to unfold.

[John Day]

Ellen Brown teases out that Trojan Horse to TBTF Bankers for their derivatives losses, in the CROmnibus bill, which is now law. It’s just this little 5% of derivatives exposure, nothing really, and all in the commodities arena, things like crude oil, mostly.
There’s about $16 trillion in backing to banks on those price hedges they sold so many of to drillers and oil companies, which are fabulously out-of-the-money now.
Whew! Just in time…

Russian Roulette: Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives

[John Day]

Here are a couple of good articles about that Sony hack. The FBI was really late to the party with its secon-round-unfounded-accusations, sorta’ like Iraqi WMDs.
American Everyman takes a good look at it with references and snippets, Ilargi-style.
https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/the-fbis-new-statement-on-the-sony-hack-is-bunk-here-is-the-real-story-of-the-sony-hack/
North Korea says it can PROVE it didn’t do the hack (a hard thing to do), and without resorting to CIA-style torture.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-20/defiant-north-korea-says-can-prove-it-not-behind-hack-without-resorting-torture-cia

[Author]

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