Reverse Engineer
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davefairtex post=3178 wrote: In some sense, both sides in this debate are talking about a denouement caused by widespread defaults on unpayable debts.
Reading over some FOFOA posts, it does appear that he acknowledges that defaults lead to deflation. But his claim is that the CBs won’t allow that deflation to stand for very long – moments, minutes, hours, or days, and that they’ll quickly react by exchanging money for all the defaulted assets.
Folks here seem to think that the CB won’t be allowed to do this; the Fed will be prevented from wholesale replacement of bank credit with base money.
What the CBs DO, how they react and what is Politically Possible for them to do at any given time varies, but it is still just a part of the equation.
The CBs can provide virtually endless liquidity and also buy assets at par value, regardless of what the actual worth of said asset is. What they cannot do at this point is force the retail banks to make any of the money they create available to the real economy.
If the TBTF Banks who are the recipients of the new Cash for Trash don’t then go ahead and make NEW LOANS into the retail economy, the new Sea of TP just sloshes around in their reserves and/or is “invested” in IPOs like Facepalm where it burns up rapidly. A few new Billionaries are made, but otherwise much more is accumulated on the liability side of this balance sheet.
At some point in the future, the postulate here is that the Trillions created here are going to exit Bankster Reserves and Sovereign holdings and simply flood the market with Dollars. Except, waht will they BUY with these Dollars? More Facepalms? More Copper they can’t sell because new Mcmansions aren’t being built fast enough and don;t need wiring and plumbing? More Gold that will just sit like a big Paperweight in the Basement Safe of the PBoC?
What the CBs cannot do is make the Dollars CIRCULATE in any meaningful fashion. Dumping them makes no sense if there is nothing really worthwhile to BUY anymore if you are Prepped Up. How many more Copper Mines do the Chinese NEED to buy anyhow? They can’t unload the Coper they have stacked up in the Warehouse ALREADY!
Euros are another story entirely. In this case, the Eurotrash already see the Writing on the Wall, the currency is collapsing and they will RUN, but not into Gold for the most part. They will RUN to the Dollar. Why? Because the Dollar is the Currency of the Big Ass Military. The SAFEST guy to bet on here is the guy with the Biggest Gun.
The Big Ass Military is what sustains the Dollar-Oil Proxy, and not until said BAM is fully confronted and shown to be a Paper Tiger will Gold or any other currency leapfrog the Dollar.
What will show this to be true? When true Cruise Missile Warfare begins. Cheap and plentiful Cruise Missiles can take out Carrier Groups, Troop Transport ships and VLCC Super Tankers, as well as fixed targets like Refineries, Pipelines and Oil Rigs. They are all Sitting Ducks. Like the Maginot Line in an era of Tank Warfare, the older Naval technology is just too vulnerable to chep unmanned missiles flying at supersonic speeds. It will send all the hardware to the bottom of Davey Jones Locker in no time at all.
Meanwhile, the House of Saud will keep selling Oil for Dollars, because they have a great Big Gun Duct Taped to their Heads. The Gun of the Big Ass Military.
ashvin post=3172 wrote: come back when you can actually respond to the specific critiques presented. We’ll be here.
I doubt he’ll be back. He’ll send a Friend of a Friend of Another Friend of Another over here instead.
RE
You asked for it chief with your “Mull it over” comment. You didn’t respond to a single thing I wrote, so further debate with you was a waste of time. I returned your Napalm. Have a nice day.
RE
Of course it’s SIMPLE. Anyone with a Bachelor of Simplicity Degree from Simpleton University knows that! The simple truth is that it is simply incredible that some people can be simply clueless.
RE
FOFOFOA post=3154 wrote: RE, I cannot engage you in a religious argument.
I didn’t make a religious argument. I used the Bible as a historical reference. Strip away all the flowery stuff, and you have a clear description of a monetary system collapse. The Tower of Babel was BTW a Counting House.
I will note that I said the price of gold is arbitrary, not that the value of gold is arbitrary. Mull that over.
I mulled it over. My conclusion is that you are evasive and unresponsive. You have a faith based belief in Gold as a store of infinite value, and a limited to nonexistent understanding of monetary theory of any sort. You contribute little worthwhile, and it is a waste of time debating you. Have a nice day.
RE
davefairtex post=3150 wrote: RE –
Under a traditional gold standard (fixed price of gold to currency) you can always liquidate gold for currency. That guarantee is provided to you by the national Treasury, who stands ready to run off and print some notes for you in exchange for your gold.
And in an international gold standard, you can always take your gold to another country that is operating on the gold standard, and exchange it there. Stored value is preserved – which is the point of the exercise.
Under the old-style gold standard, conversion of gold into notes is not a taxable event.
First off, its ulikely that an “old-style” Gold standard would be undertaken by any Goobermint, for reasons you already mentioned. So you have to look at adaptations that Goobermints might try to make here in a conversion to maintain their own solvency. FDR did it through Confiscation of gold followed by revaluation of the Dollar price of Gold. However, a taxation scheme works well also, and has a high likelihood of being undertaken if in fact a mass flight into gold occurs and the Gold Price is pushed past a certain limit, which is difficult to predict, but IMHO I cannot see how the system could stand up to valuations past about the $5K mark. It skews too many other valuations if that occurs.
Far as the rest of your points go, I mostly agree. I’ll just say at this point I think Naked Printing is unlikely in the major currencies, aka Dollar, Euro, Yen, Renminby. They will continue to try to justify with a debt liability placed on the other side of the CB. True Naked Printing DEFINITELY causes a confidence collapse in the currency at the top level. this will be avoided at all costs.
RE
davefairtex post=3148 wrote: FOFOFOA –
Looking at the Exeter pyramid, gold is placed at the bottom because (under the old Gold standard, where gold had a fixed price enforced by the US Treasury) it is the ultimate zero risk investment. No interest, but no counterparty risk at all. Borrow $100, buy $100 in gold, and you can ALWAYS liquidate that $100 debt with the gold you own. Gold as a savings vehicle under a gold standard is the safest investment possible. But that safety is based entirely on the US treasury’s enforcement of the price of gold. Lose that enforcement, and gold is no longer the safest savings vehicle.
I realize you are projecting an argument here you do not necessarily believe is true, I am just going to add to it.
You CAN’T ALWAYS liguidate Gold into some equivalent of a Paper Currency, because the paper currency can disappear on you. Take the case of Confederate Dollars. You might take $100 Confederate Dollars and buy Gold with it before the War of Southern Secession was completed and the South LOST, then after that you can’t get back the $100 Confederate Dollars, since they no longer exist. You can get back say $50 in Northern Greenbacks, which still buy something though, so you did better holding Gold than Confederate Dollars. You might have done better though if you bought $100 worth of Cotton, which after the War was in scarce supply and perhaps got back $150 Greenbacks for it.
So basically, you speculate in a Commodity and its perceived value given a whole bunch of parameters when you buy Gold. Its actual fungibility into a National Currency also faces numerous hurdles, not the least of which is Taxation when you liquidate the Gold for the Currency. it could be very unprofitable indeed to invest in a lot of Gold, if as is likely a large Capital Gains tax is imposed for converting it back into a more fungible currency. Given current parameters, a 90% Taxation on this conversion is not outta da question, particularly over in Eurotrashland. I could easily see the Greek Goobermint after shifting to Drachma taking a 90% Tax on people who want to convert Gold to Drachma. Make it illegal to do direct commerce in Gold, if anybody wants to participate in the local Greek Economy (locals mostly of course), they only get 10% of the value, Da Goobermint takes the rest of it.
Gold HOLDERS of course would be very unhappy with this, but not most of the Greek Population, since they have no Gold to convert this way anyhow. Its a “Tax the Rich” methodology, which generally plays very well on a popular level with the destitute (most of the population).
Will gold have all the other effects you claim on trade, money flows, and the like? I haven’t thought that far, so I don’t have an opinion. But I do question regular people’s willingness to rely entirely on freegold as a store of value, solely because the price of gold is a speculation, and many people who want to store value focus primarily on safety – and specifically on the ability to reliably liquidate debt incurred under their national currency.
I can’t predict absolutely how free floating gold would impact overall trade, but I suspect it wouldn’t make that big a splash. Its a pebble in a very large pond now, and overall Gold represents only a tiny fraction of world trade in anything. It might rise in value, it might decrease. It is unlikely to remain very stable though.
Anyone who bought gold at $1900 can attest to its imperfections as a store of value, at least recently. And of course those who bought at $300 can say what a good speculation it was for them. Neither things are characteristics of a good “store of value”. High reward is just the other side of the coin from high risk.
Agreed.
The inevitability issue also bothers me. I’ve always wondered why big debtor nations (the US) would want a competing currency that would seem to work against their interests. A huge military power with the ability to self-inflate their debts away would not seem to be a likely candidate for espousing sound money. And other powers, less militarily capable, would not seem to be in a position to make sound money demands.
Its really a canard that debts can be self inflated out of existence, really that is only possible for internally held debt. Inflation by conventional means expands the internatinally held debt. Weimar Germany wasn’t able to pay off international debts by hyperinflating. They just defaulted on those debts.
In the end game, the Military power does determine who gets to wash their debt and who has to pay off theirs. Problem here is that it can become too energy consumptive for the Military to keep the flow of resources moving back into the center, at which point it goes negative EROEI and the Military fractures. That is what happenned to Rome.
Coming Soon also to a Big Ass Military near You.
RE
FOFOFOA wrote:
Gold is the best store of value because it does not interfere with the economy. Its price is completely arbitrary so it can absorb as much inflationary pressure as necessary.This is completely false.
The price is not “completely arbitrary”, it depends on many variables extant in the society at large. A few of these variables are:
1-Quantity of Gold available
2-Quantity of Available resources to trade the Gold for
3-Perceived value of the Gold relative to the Resources
4-Hoarding and Distribution of either Gold or Resources
5-Arbitrage across societies in deficit of either Gold or Resources
6-Arbitrage of Gold against Silver in a bimetallic Money Standard
7-Political factors such as War and Environmental issues such as Natural Disasters
8-Population issuesGold cannot “store value” in a vacuum that does not account for how Value gets set on anything depending on availability and distribution. It is as subject to price manipulation as anything else is, in fact based on History probably even moreso than most other commodities. it’s final price is not “arbitrary” in any sense of the word.
Anyhow, I note here that you just ignore any arguments I make and choose not to even make an attempt to read and understand them, but I will continue to troll and pick off your arguments as I encounter the ones which are egregiously wrong. This is one of them. You cannot GET more wrong than this. The Value of Gold is “arbitrary”? That is just ridiculous.
RE
FOFOFOA post=3139 wrote:
Freegold presupposes a world similar to the one we have now. Your argument, such as it is, presupposes radical changes (nations falling apart, international trade grinding to a halt, no energy available). Your idea is pure conjecture, and pretty outlandish at that.A world similar to the one we have now is highly unlikely. The world I project is not based on conjecture, it is based on the written History of the fall of Babylon. Read Revelation 18 including the part about Gold and Silver (bolded for emphasis):
Revelation18 wrote:
18 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.
7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
13 And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
14 And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.
15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
The only real difference between this Collapse and that of Babylon is one of scale. This go round is a lot BIGGER.
RE
FOFOFOA post=3135 wrote: Freegold will happen because superproducers need a way to save their excess value, in size, through time. If they don’t get it they have no incentive to produce more than they need, since their savings are diluted. If they don’t produce, consumers can’t consume. It is in the interests of both parties to make gold freely valued, and so it will happen. Simple, no?
This argument presupposes the existence of “superproducers” who produce a large surplus will continue forward, but this is unlikely to be true. With diminishing per capita energy available, no nation state will be producing a surplus. The whole concept of “saving” in this situation becomes rather questionable on both the micro level of the individual and the macro level of the state.
The most likely scenario is more one-to-many fractures like the Soviet Union as large interconnected system revert to smaller more local and self sufficient ones. The role of Gold or any form of money at all through this period is also open to conjecture.
RE
FOFOFOA post=3131 wrote:
Tell us why, if you can.
Oh, I most certainly can, the explanation however is pretty long. I suggest you read
Energy Money Equilibrium in the Age of Oil and Energy Money Equilibrium II: The Modern Era and the Jenga Paradox
My prose is quite a bit more entertaining to read through than FOFOA’s, so hopefully you will do better wading through my shit than I do wading through FOFOAs. LOL.
Excerpt
RE wrote: …The money develops when the Counting begins in the Warehouse of Grain. Whatever is in there is represented in the Count by Credits, which can then be symbolized in a token. Only as many Tokens are produced as there is grain to cover them in redemption. Precious metal coinage works well for this in the beginning. All the precious metals the King has acquired by whatever means care coined up, and appropriately valued so that there are not more coins than Grian that can be redeemed. This is Hard Money in extremis. It has an absolute value measured in the Food it represents.
The King can now hand out the Tokens to his Military protectors and also pay the oversears of slaves or serfs who work the land and grow the food. These folks are not paid in coinage, they merely get a small portion of the food they produce for subsistence living.
Problems arise as the society grows. In the beginning, the surplus of food being produced exceeds the amount of precious metals available for coinage, so the food drops in price. A few things can happen here, one is that the King can stop paying out so much coinage to his Military and Overseer classes, raising the price of the food up again, allowing the King to keep more Precious metal in the treasury and more food in the warehouse. Everybody is still beign fed here, King has more in the Treasury, and besides that surplus in the grain warehouse grows. It keeps a pretty long while, but eventually will rot or simply become ridiculous to save any more of. Like putting up more than a few years of Preps, it gets ridiculous.
So you start to Trade the surplus with others who don’t produce so much food and expansion begins of the system. Peripheral areas pay in more Gold and Silver and also begin to produce other things besides food which the Money becomes useful for paying for.
At this point the system has become vastly more complex. The Tokens no longer represent an absolute amount of Grain in a warehouse, but rather the value of all Goods and Services being produced in this ever growing system. Bourses or Trading Markets develop which set relative values for everything being done in the society, which as it increases in size and velocity needs a rapidly increasing Money supply to handle. The Precious metal coinage does not increase at the same rate in most circumstances, so in order to have more “money” available, base metals are used to produce some coins, which pretty much can be produced at will. Money is getting softer during this period, but so long as Da Goobermint doesn’t go wild coining up the base metals, it doesn’t devalue while the system is expanding…
ashvin post=3122 wrote:
Our friend FOFOFOA reflects the same mentality. He responded on the first critique to pipefit and GO, because they are hard money gold bugs and he believed, perhaps correctly, that they are easy targets for a Freegold advocate to take aim with. However, he does not want to consider any critiques that do not involve all of the simplistic arguments for hard money or deflation, even if those critiques are based on concepts directly quoted from FOFOA himself and contained with the theory of Freegold.
I did notice that FOFOFOA did not actually rebut any arguments critiquing Freegold, he just Napalms them. “I’m looking for new stuff, but there is nothing new here worth my consideration.”
As for FOFOA himself, I am not surprised he won’t step outside his own little piece of turf, he has too much to lose. The “Friends of Friends” community appears to have grown quite large, and you don’t want to risk getting pantsed in front of such a big crowd. LOL.
Far as FOFOA’s website being the “right” place to be debating these questions, that is obviously horseshit. A commentariat like that is steeped in Group Think and you just mire down in hacking up the Grunts while the General smokes Cigars back at Headquarters.
Anyhow, so far FOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOFOA here hasn’t made any arguments to convince me that Gold can hold its value against more necessary commodities in a time of real scarcity. So as a store of wealth to retain purchasing power in a hyperinflationary environment it may work for a while, but only until the trade system crashes along with the Black Market. At that point, Gold is worth Jack Shit.
Besides not making any worthwhile arguments of his own, FOexp27A hasn’t rebutted your arguments or mine, so I’m not sure what he is doing here besides soft Napalming.
RE
Subtitled: Greece, the Gift that Keeps on Giving for the Doomer
Grexit: RE Prays to the Porcelain God
Warning for the easily offended: Included in the post are some graphic pics I won’t repost here on TAE to offend the faint of heart.
Excerpt
RE wrote: …For their part, the Krauts blame the whole mess on the Greeks as Profligate Spenders who did not live within their means, but the fact is the Krauts ENABLED the Greeks to do this for their own self-aggrandizement. At ANY time in the last 40 years the Kraut Banksters could have looked at the Greek Balance Sheet and said “Hey, they can’t AFFORD this Loan”, but they never did that. If they did, then they would have lost the Konsumer Base of Greeks buying BMWs…
RE
SecularAnimist post=3117 wrote: From the cover of “Debt: The first 5000 years” by David Graeber. Every economic textbook says the same thing: Money money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems – to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem wi this version of history? There is not a shred of evidence to support it.
Not only is there no evidence to support that theory, it just doesn’t MAKE SENSE when you think about the Ag Paradigm, which Stores Food (Value) in Warehouses. Counting systems only become necessary once you have stuff to Store up this way.
Once you start Counting, then you start making Abstract representations of the Count, and the Abacus is one means of doing that, the first “Computers”. If you then realize that Distribution of the Count can be done by issuing Tokens representing the Count, it makes much more sense to go with the concept that money did not evolve because of a convenience need of hauling goods to Market, but because Ownership of Goods was consolidated by a Political Entity (Pharoahs, Kings etc), who then create Money as a Distribution means for those now Centralized goods.
IOW, Money is the PRODUCT of Goobermint, or at least it began that way. The great GENIUS of the Money Masters/Banksters over millenia was to take control over Money Creation while leaving the liabilities of Political management of a society to Goobermints. A whole body of law was created to Protect “Private Property” inside of a political superstructure of the Nation State, but this dichotomization is really quite mythical, because without the political power of Goobermints to organize up Armies and Police and so forth, no Private Property can really exist.
Anyhow, Private creation of Money serves the purpose of Privatizing Profit while Socializing the Losses, this is not a new thing. Sadly at this point, even taking BACK the power of Money Creation out of private hands does not resolve the problems created, because the actual utility of any money at all in a world of Scarcity and Overshoot is highly questionable.
Regardless of the inability to solve the overhang of problems already created, continuing on with this paradigm is clearly hurtful to most of the population and so must be STOPPED. It has been over the millenia impossible to stop it though, we had to wait for it to run into problems of mathematical law of exponents and physical constraints on the resources for it to stop itself, sorta like the transmission on your car locking up.
So the opportunity will come here in due time to reconstruct a different paradigm, but it will not come before the monetary system consumes itself, happening now in real time as we speak.
RE
Yay! The DNS is now locating TAE again for my Browser!
This was a good opportunity for me to consolidate and flesh out my own perspectives on Gold, which I haven’t done recently. The problem I see here with the series though is that FOFOA isn’t here to defend his POV and rebut the arguments being made against Freegold.
This goes back to a general complaint of mine regarding internet debate on Blogs and Forums, which is that it is spread out all over the place and you don’t get participation by the pundits whose articles you might be deconstructing at any given time. See the article Cacophany of Pundits and Commentariat for more on this subject.
Any chance we could get FOFOA to make a Guest Cameo Appearance for a Round Table Debate? That would be fun.
RE
TheTrivium4TW post=3087 wrote:
A reasonable monetary system is theoretically possible, but it will NEVER happen with a “box of rocks” prole mentality regarding “finance.” Even its name taunts us of slavery.In THEORY, just about ANYTHING is possible. A perfectly equitable Communist Society is possible in THEORY. A perfectly efficient Free Market is possible in THEORY. In THEORY, Unicorns can Shit Skittles.
I am more interested in how things REALLY work than in THEORIES about how some ideologue THINKS they should work, and FOFOA is so ideologically bound to Gold he better not go swimming, because he will SINK very fast.
Anyhow, I finally got through all the photo work I had to do for the Railroad Article, so I got started on deconstructing FOFOAs Austrian THEORY.
Swiss Cheese folks. Really.
RE
ashvin post=3056 wrote: [quote=agelbert]You cannot EVER control Afghanistan, no matter how many drones , robots and troops you throw at it. It’s OVER there for NATO because ALL the NATO countries cannot squeeze more money out of their people due to the economic crisis enveloping them. And forget the police state tactics at home to force us to fund the war(s). No jobs = no money to be robbed, period.
I give it a year at the most. Always remember that, unless a country is attacked, every penny of swag going to war ‘profiteering’ (profit for a tiny group of psychopaths) is discretionary.
No doubt the efforts of the elites who control NATO are far from sustainable, and there is a good chance they will fail in conquering Eurasia (mostly due to the energy requirements needed to secure the territory and energy resources). However, I am not as optimistic as you about fiscal constraints in the US and Europe forcing them to abandon the effort near-term. In fact, I do not think they will ever voluntarily cease their war efforts, no matter how much their populations have been bled dry. If they were to do that, they may as well kiss their [centuries in the making] globalist agenda goodbye, and I highly doubt that’s something they would be willing to do.
Meanwhile, the war profiteers will still make a killing on the “war on terror”, no matter how ineffective it is at its stated goals or how expensive it becomes for taxpayers. Also, who’s to say that we won’t be attacked? Many people still believe that we were attacked by [pick your country in the Arab world] on 9/11, and there is a lot of evidence that it was a false flag. If they did it once, they could do it again.
The War on Terror is coming to a close, to be replaced by a more explicitly Hot War for the Resources in MENA. This is the reason for the prepositioning of so many military assets around the region.The issue with the Hot War once it gets into full swing is that its going to pull in both the Ruskies and the Chinese, and once that happens, a lot of Big Hardware will be destroyed very rapidly. Not necessarily with Nukes, though some Tactical Nukes may be dispatched.
Mainly I think the battle will be one of Cruise Missiles taking out Refineries and Pipelines and Oil Rigs and VLCC Tankers, all of which are Sitting Ducks. Cruise Missile technology out flanks all the prior technologies, like Tanks out flanked the Maginot Line. Nobody from either side will be able to move many troops, because again Troop carrying ships are all ALSO sitting ducks.
The Main Battlefield is MENA, but this doesn’t mean the Cruise Missile War won’t hit the shores of the FSofA. A cruise missile could be launched from a Submarine and the Chinese will say it was a rogue North Korean Sub that did it. Said Missile(s) could take out the LOOP in short order. No LOOP, no offload for VLCC Tankers to the Refineries in NOLA and Houston.
IMHO, once this sucker really gets going, the main choke points of the Industrial Infrastructure will be RAPIDLY taken out. After that, it will be almost impossible to fuel the Military Machine itself.
I give the War 5 years MAX before all the Carrier Groups are at the bottom of Davey Jones Locker, and we won’t be rebuilding them either because there will be no way to Fuel them.
Civil Wars following that, with possible Mad Max scenarios as well. I don’t think the End Game will be purely Economic. It will go to full scale war here, a War which cannot be Won by any side at all.
RE
pipefit post=3046 wrote: “I DO have a procreation Final Solution I think is pretty fair, but I’ll write it down in the Frosbite Falls MEMBERS ONLY table in the Diner , not here on TAE.”
The way to get thoughtful posters over to your site is to post a brief summary of your great idea here. If you can set that ‘hook’ with the beginning of a great idea, I’ll go to your site to red the full post, assuming I don’t have to pay any money to become a member.
Basically, we have a catch-22 type situation in play. The thing that enables man to build huge cities and enjoy a high std. of living is civilization and division of labor. Div. of labor leads to technological advances in agriculture and medicine, which in turn lead to vast increases in population.
It is not a permanent solution, but we could probably buy a few decades of time if we could do away with war and the big military budgets. Costa Rica, for example, has no significant army, and they are far more advanced, in many ways, than the rest of Central America. So it is possible, just not likely.
I periodically do drop excerpts onto TAE 🙂 Not in this case because I haven’t written it yet. At least not an updated version, I covered the topic a few years ago in debates on Peak Oil with “St. Matthew’s Island” Monte Quest.
Anyhow, right now on DD the HI vs Deflation debate Guest Starring Ashvin is pretty hot, and I just got off the Alaska Railroad in Talkeetna so I’ll be writing an article on that tonight with lots of great pics.
Is that enough plugging?
RE
pipefit post=3042 wrote:
Are you paying Ash for all the advertizing you do here? If not, you are spamming. Doesn’t really bother me, but there are a lot of sites on the web, I don’t have time to read them all. I’m sure your site is a great place for interesting discussion, but my plate is already full.I’m PLUGGING, not spamming.
Spamming is when you drop in a lot of nonsense in a thread which has nothing to do with the topic. I don’t do that. I write thoughtful commentary appropriate tot he discussion, and then throw in a Plug.
You can think of TAE as the “Tonight Show” and Ashvin is Johnny Carson and I am Tiny Tim. I come on, chat a little with Johnny, then sing “Tip Toe thru the Tulips” while strumming on my Ukelele.
Sorry about your Full Plate. Top Notch Cuisine over in the Diner 🙂
pipefit post=3038 wrote:
In an authoritarian, heavily overpopulated country like China, where the ‘one child’ policy was somewhat of a flop, I would go about it like this, for rural families. You are allowed to have one child. If you show that you are exceptionally good stewards of the land, especially in terms of using sustainable methods of agriculture, you can have a second child.
So what do you do in the case where the people VIOLATE the law and OOPS have a second child? Do you Imprison them? Forced Abortion? Expose the Infant on a Mountain Top after it is born? What?
Also, your Final Solution here is only talking about Rural Families with some direct connection to the land. How do you limit the reproductive rights of people who live in the Big Shities of China, or anywhere else? Is it by how much MONEY you make? Do you institute a Means Test for procreation? If so, again what do you do when people VIOLATE the LAW and OOPS get pregnant because OOPS they got drunk and forgot the condom?
I DO have a procreation Final Solution I think is pretty fair, but I’ll write it down in the Frosbite Falls MEMBERS ONLY table in the Diner :P, not here on TAE. Regardless though, at this stage of the game in the Birth-Death Population control mechanism, we have long since past the ability to resolve the problem just on the Birth End of the equation. MANY people have to DIE here now. Finding the most Just Method of determining who lives and who dies is the great challenge of the spin down. NO Method will be absolutely Just, but some methods are more Just than others.
I SEE Dead People.
RE
Great idea Ash!
However, is this just theoretical, or do you want to file an actual lawsuit? If so, can we find a Lawyer to take the case Pro-Bono? Is there a member of the Bar out there in the TAE community currently UE who wouid like to make a name for him/herself?
I do see some problems with this though. First would be classifying all of zhumanity as “Wildlife”. Homo Industrialis, most of Humanity right now isn’t Wild, it is Captive. Probably the only Humans you could make a case for being “Wildlife” would be the Bushmen of the Kalahari, some Aboriginal Australians, some Inuit in Nunavut and some Amazonian Tribes. Otherwise, all HUMAN Wildlife is already extinct.
Countering that argument, you could make the case that Industrialization itself is the cause of wiping out Wild Humans, so therefore in order to save Wild Humans the FWS needs to use its mandate to outlaw Industrialization!
Sadly of course, I doubt this will gain much traction, but you could get a lot of Publicity if you actually filed said Lawsuit. As Spokesman for the Doomstead Diner Community, consider us IN on a Class Action lawsuit with TAE.
[quote=TheTrivium4TW post=3021][quote=Reverse Engineer post=3007]I napalmed the latest trash off the keyboard of Ambrose earlier today at the Tomaine Poisoning Table in the Diner in the AEP: Illuminati Shill thread.
https://www.doomsteaddiner.org/forum/index.php?topic=330.0
Hi RE, I’ve been thinking about your view of money and I think our views are moving closer and closer the more I evaluate it.
Before I said that money “greases the skids” of the innate human selfish factor.
I think that visual is a gross understatement. Money doesn’t “grease the skids” as much as it is a “hyper-accelerant” for the selfishness that resides in humanity.
Think of human selfishness as the seed and the money as the fertilizer, water and sunshine.
I think that analogy works much better.
I’m fine with the Seed/Fertilizer analogy. Another good one is the Catalyst Analogy. In that one, certain reactions cannot occur or occur only infinetisimally slowly in the absence of a catalyst.
The point be here that whatever the PRECISE genesis is of the Origin of Evil, it is quite clear that in the presence of Money, Evil grows MUCH more rapidly. So if you want a society where Evil does NOT grow at such a rapid rate, you gotta get rid of the Catalyst for it, or get rid of the Fertilizer/water etc however you want to make the analogy is fine.
By no means will getting rid of money solve ALL problems, and in fact given the current organizational parameters it is going to create a whole lot of other problems. Regardless of that, if you have a system which is CLEARLY doing great damage to Human Society, you MUST try something else. SOON. time is running out.
RE
Golden Oxen post=3024 wrote: Look at the 100 billion they just created out of thin air with that Facebook fantasy they dumped on the sheeple yesterday!
The $100B created in the Facepalm IPO will last about as long as the average Foxconn worker lasts making Iphones before committing Sepukku. The ONLY reason that stock is not ALREADY in the toilet is because Morgan Stanley is backstopping it.
AndrewP post=3008 wrote: Federation makes sense for the EU, and is probably the only way the EU will be able to successfully fight over the scraps of diminishing fuel resources in coming years. A strong federation will create a power greater than the US, and will allow the EU to wage wars of conquest. While cars will not pay for the fuel that feeds them, wars certainly can. The EU wan wage war more efficiently than the US because there will be no extraneous ideological pretentions – they will simply grab the oil.
Regardless of whether Federating the EU “makes sense” or not on an Economic Level (and I do not think it does), it is a Political Improbability of EXTREME proportions that such a Federation can occur now.
There are MASSIVE structural imbalances in the various economies constituting the EU, and moreover there is no historical narrative to draw them all together, and beyond THAT you even have Language differential between these countries. You know French people speak FROG, and Germans speak KRAUT and the Bloody English speak a bastardized form of the English Language also. LOL.
Eurocrats wish to take this melange and Homogenize it into a Federation, but good grief on a political level where you make some pretense toward “Democracy” that Dog just won’t HUNT. Krauts are not going to willingly take a hit to their standard of living to keep Greek Pensioners solvent here.
What they ARE trying to do is strip all pretense at Democracy OUT of the Eurotrash States so they can ARTIFICIALLY “Federate” that which is not “Federatable”. This is WORSE than forcing a Jew and a Catholic to marry each other and find some common ground for the marriage, they are trying to force a Polygamous Marriage of numerous conflicting Faiths, complete with some Underage Girls being married off to Sugar Daddies they DESPISE.
All basically done with “Good Intentions” which would be to kep Eurotrashland as a “Competitive” enough large entity to keep playing with the Big Boys of Russia, China and the FSofA. You can SEE the wheels turning in the mind of a Eurocrat, “If we could just get a new World Order WORKING here we could COMPETE with the FSofA, china and the Ruskies for the last of the remaining cheap Oil!”.
Sadly for the Eurocrats, this DREAM is highly unlikely to come TRUE at this point. It most CERTAINLY will not occur through any political process even REMOTELY “democratic”.
These guys bet their Wad on the Euro, and it was just a VERY bad bet to begin with. It cannot be salvaged and it will not be.
I napalmed the latest trash off the keyboard of Ambrose earlier today at the Tomaine Poisoning Table in the Diner in the AEP: Illuminati Shill thread.
https://www.doomsteaddiner.org/forum/index.php?topic=330.0
Check out the latest trash of the keyboard of Ambrose.
Highlights
Gary Jenkins from the bond advisers Swordfish said those betting on a market crash should be careful. “The global central banks are going to respond with the biggest flood of liquidity the world has ever seen. It will make the LTRO (the ECB’s €1 trillion lending to banks) look like small change,” he said.
REALLY? This clown expects the ECB to backstop Spain and Italy with a Niagara Falls of money that makes €1T look like Chump Change? How Big is this Bazooka going to be Gary? €10T? You also figure that Helicopter Ben will Print Dollars to Swap for that as well? What collateral is anybody putting up for this printing spree? Or do you figure the CBs will just Naked Print €10T?
Bank of America said it expects a “powerful short squeeze” in risk assets as speculative funds unwind positions, led by a rebound in battered bank stocks and Club Med bonds. The euro would surge 10pc to $1.40 against the US dollar after dipping first to $1.20 in the immediate panic.
I am supposed to believe the savvy utterances coming from BofA? BofA Economistas expect the Euro to SURGE to $1.40 here after Greece is left to Twist in the Wind? While Spain and Italy are still IN the Euro with 25-50% Youth Unemployment?
Does Ambrose believe this shit or is he paid by the Word to shill for these assholes?
RE
pipefit post=2985 wrote: Hard to believe Greece leaves the Euro. Far more likely it is Germany. Once Greece exits, it is all over for the other PIIGS, Belgium, France, and maybe even The Netherlands.
Not that there are any easy fixes, but ‘Austerity’ has been voted down. It’s really not even on the table any more.
Agreed, “Austerity” has been voted down, but implicitly also the alternative to Austerity of further financing an unsustainable economic system has ALSO been Voted Down. If there is some 3rd Option between Austerity and just Printing Money to finance the economy, I do not know what that is.
From my POV, a New Drachma is a Non-Starter. I don’t see what the Greeks have to back this up besides Olives and Feta Cheese, and I don’t think the Export Market for EITHER of those is all that good right now.
If the Greek Central Bank RESTRICTS issuance of Drachma so as not to ruit into an HI event, then the Greeks can’t pay Pnesioners and Civil Service sectors with it, they’ll be as hamstrung as with the Euro.
I am CONVINCED if the Greeks issue New Drachma, the notes will HI at least as fast as Zimbabwe Notes did.
RE
I’ve read a bunch more of John’s articles on The Slog since we cross posted a couple of articles on DD and the Slog.
First off, John’s main focus appears to be the shenanigans underway by the Political class in Europe and even moreso on his own home turf of the UK. He is definitely anti-conspiracy theory, so his spin is closer to that of TAE than it is to DD. Stylistically John’s stuff appealed to me because he Rants a LOT, and he is a funny guy overall.
The thing I have not been able to elucidate so far in Slog Theory is exactly where John stands with respect to monetary theory, which is at the crux of all the Political problems in Eurotrashland. He doesn’t like Pols on either side of line, but I don’t know what if any kind of monetary solution he favors here.
The main thing though that interferes here with good comunication is that John doesn’t seem to participate much in the commentary even on the Slog itself, so getting an answer to any questions you might have about one of his posts doesn’t seem to happen too often. Reason for this I suspect is that he consumes himself writing an ENORMOUS amount every day of original posting on The Slog. He puts out long and involved posts twice a day most of the time.
Anyhow, regardless of all of that this article is a good one as a broad overview of problems occurring on the other side of the Pond, and The Slog is a good read.
Yay! TAE is BACK, at least for now on my Laptop. So I’ll try to get in a reply here before it goes to the Great Beyond again.
All the Commodities are set up to get hit HARD here again in this next go-round of Credit Collapse.
In the intervening period here, the Chinese have been supporting the Commodities trade, particularly in mining as the best place to recycle trade surplus, rather than invest in furthe FSofA Debt Toilet Paper. Buying up Gold, Iron, Coal and of course also FOOD products and Futures.
What happens to the Chinese investments in these things when the End Konsumers cannot afford to buy them at the Inflated Prices they pruchased them in Bulk at? Generally speaking, Buy HIGH, Sell LOW is not a good Investment Strategy.
Effectively here, the Chinese have put a “Basket” of goods into the Basement Safe, but unloading them at a PROFIT is not going to be possible here because Credit is beign withdrawn from the End Konsumers.
Coupled together with low returns on the Value Added goods the Chinese produce with their Leveraged to Beat the Band manufacturing infrastructure, they are going to be in a world of Hurt here pretty soon. OK, really they ALREADY are in a world of Hurt, but it is not going to get any better, that is for sure.
Still semi-Slow Motion in the Collapse, but an Acceleration Phase now seems imminent. The CB crowd will have to be VERY creative this time round to support the monetary structure. A coordinated Printing Action seems the most likely scenario, but they can’t mess around this time with small potatoes. They’ll need to spit the Fiat out with a FIREHOSE, and not just to the TBTF Banksters. They need to get the money to Goobermints that are all teetering on Collapse now, from Greece to Spain to the rest of the PIIGS AND to the various States and Municipalities in the FSofA.
I do not think they have the CHUTZPAH to do this in the quantity necessary to extend and pretend out this phase of the debt deflation. The Bankruptcies of Nation States and smaller “Sovereigns” are coming now over the ridge, and its a long way down to go once they cross the Great Divide.
RE
https://www.doomsteaddiner.comPS: Note to Ashvin, Ilargi and Stoneleigh. If you continue to have issues on site visibility by some readers of TAE, I will repost all TAE Blog Articles on the Diner Blog.
TheTrivium4TW post=2969 wrote:
There will be no bailouts for debtors… just servitude.
Bailouts are for the oligarchs… debtors are the “pod” bodies in the Matrix that the oligarchs suck dry.
I mean, isn’t it obvious by now?
Sorta correct, except that it really does depend on who you ARE as a Debtor. Really, the Oligarchs/Illuminati are the biggest Debtors of all. It is small debtors who suffer debt servitude issues, not big debtors. If you can ammass a BIG enough Debt, you become TBTF.
The problem with real BIG debtors is the way the Legal System is constructed. Anyone who borrow REALLY big does it under the cover of a “Corporation”, and by the LAW, unless you can prove some sort of malfeasance, just getting a corp into Debt is not a criminal offense for a manager of a corp.
So for say someone like Carl Icahn, he can load up a Corp he buys with Debt, pay himself well for a while and then when the Corp goes belly up, he walks away scot free with debt money the now defunct Corp cannot pay up on.
Really, it is this corporate architecture which prevents individuals from being held accountable for the malfeasance; there is no acountability in it. If you can afford to set up a Corp and buy the Scum Sucking Bottom Feeder Lawyers, you can steal as much as you would like to steal and never be held personally accountable. This methodology is of course not available to the small debtor.
MOST of the money though is created by BIG Debtors, Nation States and Multi National Corps. How do you “enslave” a Corporation? You can’t really, nor can you really enslave a Nation this way, unless the people of the Nation buy into the idea, which of course they usually do because they can;t figure out how to operate in teh ABSENCE of Money.
All you have to do to get rid of this form of slavery is get rid of the money entirely, Gold or Fiat based does not matter. Money is the ROOT of all Evil. Eliminate it, you eliminate 99.99% of the problems we created for ourselves. Of course though there is Hangover Problem, and even eliminating all money tomorrow won’t cure the Hangover.
RE
RE
ashvin post=2955 wrote:
If Europe wants to emulate the US (whose states are just as broke as Greece), and perhaps extend its prison sentence by a few more lifetimes, then it should by all means do what AEP proposes or “half-proposes”. My argument is that the LAST thing the Europeans should willingly do is emulate the US setup, even if it comes at great short-term costs to avoid doing so. Fortunately, I believe there are some forces within Europe that feel the same way, or at least half-feel the same way.I agree with Steve that the underlying reason for the credit collapse is energy deficit on the one hand, and with Ashvin and Triv on the other hand that Central Banking and Federation is first off going to do nothing but delay the collapse and beyond that is simply a nightmare in the making.
Far as there being some forces in Europe fighting this, there is of course Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party. He may not be perfect, but compared to that other Brit Prep School Twirp AEP, he is a positive Saint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hJ6_Ey_MJV4
RE
Don’t worry, either way it goes Ambrose won’t be hanging around for the denoument. He disappeared for a couple of months last year into the Chilean Andes. Doubtless hanging out in the Rothschilds Bunker drinking 500 year old Pinot Noire while stuffing some Chilean cocaine up the nose of some wannabee Ford Model.
Ambrose has been getting progressively more Euro-centric as this insanity has continued, and he is either losing his marbles or he is taking hefty bribes from Nathan Rothschild to further spin up his shit this way.
Goes in the Heaving the Technicolor Yawn bin.
RE
https://www.doomsteaddiner.comPS: BTW gang, I updated the Newz Page on the Diner, looks cooler now and includes features from the DD Video Jukebox as well.
Planet Earth- F.U.B.A.R. cross posted on the Doomstead Diner
https://www.doomsteaddiner.org/blog/2012/05/15/planet-earth-f-u-b-a-r/
RE
natureisnature post=2924 wrote: in “Ashvin’s article, Planet Earth – F.U.B.A.R., MONDAY, MAY 14, 2012 1:26 PM “, this phrasing exists as “Europe will be F.U.B.A.R., that’s what. Capital exodus, financial contagion, hyperinflation, social unrest, civil war… “
“hyperinflation”? what “hyperinflation”? apparently “Ashvin’s” perspective contradicts “Automatic Earth’s” consistent perspective of “a severe deflation would come imminently”.
why such a contradiction? why? editors should discuss this conflict in mentality extensively…“OMG”! hard to believe such situation exists.
explain to viewers and reader why “hyperinflation” is imminent, Please, “Ashvin”!
i demand “Ashvin’s” complete honesty to explaining why “hyperinflation” is imminent.
I’ll reply to this one.
HI is possible with the Euro because there are multiple other currency options for Eurotrash to flock to, notably the Dollar but also the Swissie and Pound also.
HI is also possible because the currency was structured so poorly to begin with. They can’t do the Circle Jerk with Treasury that Da Fed and the BoE do.
RE
pipefit post=2931 wrote: A few years (or months?) from now, there either won’t be any social security checks, or their purchasing power will be nil. Sure would be nice to have a huge garden, your own source of clean water, etc.
Actually, in the near term of a few years, I would expect to see a vast EXPANSION of the SNAP Card system where EVERYONE, Retired and UE alike will all get food, energy and health care ration cards in a Wartime Economy. Conscription will take care of the young UE problem and aging Rosie the Riveter will get a job making Tanks at the old GM Plant.
I dont think we get to the complete breakdown stage until AFTER the Final War is finished, and that will likely take a few years.
RE
http//www.doomsteaddiner.orgGlennjeff post=2920 wrote: RE,
Sorry to quibble but money has no conscience or awareness or motivation and therefore not capable of manifesting evil. It is the Religion of Money which is practiced by us who-mans, our conceptualsations and lusts in regard to it where the problems arise. We all know what fundamentalist and extremist religions create.
Disagreed. It doesn’t need conscience or awareness or motivation, it is an emergent property of the system.
RE
skipbreakfast post=2907 wrote: RE, you were seeking to compare Ecuadorian debt to Greek debt. Keep in mind that both countries would be essentially repudiating all their debt, period. CH Smith notes in his article that the plan is dependant on a total 100% repudation of debt. By adopting the US dollar, it gives the Greeks some time to rebuild without being totally hyper-inflated into non-existence. At the moment, if they were quick, the Greeks could convert all their Euros to Dollars at a very reasonable exchange rate, all things considered!
You still haven’t told me where the Greek Goobermint is going to get Dollars to pay all its Pensioners and Civil Service Workers.
RE
