Open a newpaper (if you can find one not going out of business). Read it cover to cover. This is what the death of capitalism looks like.I am not saying we will not make through this "recession"; however, I am saying that we have rapidly increased what used to be a slow pace of nationalizing everything. With this new accelerated pace I would not be surprised to see the end of the USA based on the original constitution as we know it.
Here is what happens when the govt gets involved in Economics. The free market folks find advantages (loopholes), and exploit them...it the way it has always worked...it is the way it always will. I figure better to have it done out in the open by mostly honest people than have the enterprising done by mobsters and gangs in back alleys. Case and point: What did an entrepreneur look like in the USA in the 1950's? What did an entrepreneur look like in the USSR during the same time?...Please note, sales tax in Seattle is now 10%. That is bullshit. Nothing insightful to say... ...
Urban Survival... Loose "Change"
AP Writer Calvin Woodward's got it right in "PROMISES PROMISES: Obama tax pledge up in smoke..."
Welcome to the world of non-change change. We elect someone on the promise of bringing change and instead get higher taxes, an administration chock-full of ex-Clintonistas, a crappy economy and moving more troops to obscure places. So, where's the change? I mean besides trying to disarm Americans and erase what's left of the tattered Constitution that the Patriot Acts didn't didn't already dismember on the republicorps' watch?
Oh, I'm sorry: Yes, there is change. I apologize. Now the government can ask for the head-on-a platter of a CEO if a big company doesn't toe the mark. We haven't seen the end of that yet, or so it seems from reading the CBS piece on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's vision of a planned economy. Want to know how it all turns out this fall? Ever read a history of the Soviet Union.?
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Meantime, it doesn't help, of course that the republicorps are doing their damnedest to scuttle any would-be economic recovery, since they were able to foist a steaming lump-o-crap economy off on the new kids (the Obama crew less Clintonistas). In fact, it sez right here -- and this comes from Karl Rove so you know it must be true (sound of el Don being poured) that "The president is 'keeping score'" referring to his former boss.
And the evils of partisanship were further underscored as former veep-Dick "Cheney emerges from cave to attack Obama". Ah, such behavior provides plenty of visual content for our resident cartoon genius Rebecca Price...
And so are we...for change. But, the more things 'change' the more they stay the same, huh?
Gee 20
One "demonstrator dies and 87 arrested following clashes with police" in the London where the G20 is trying to scheme their way out of global mass consumption paradigm crackup by coming up with a finer kind of paper.
One Brazilian official has spilt (sic) the beans that the G20 will raise funding of the International Monetary Fund by $1-trillion. Guess who's gonna be writing that check?
Now, why do you suppose the IMF needs a trillion dollars? Well, a Wikipedia entry here oughta give you a clue:
"The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial since the late Cold War period, as the IMF policy makers supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations. Critics also claim that the IMF is generally apathetic or hostile to their views of democracy, human rights, and labor rights. The controversy has helped spark the anti-globalisation movement. Arguments in favor of the IMF say that economic stability is a precursor to democracy; however, critics highlight various examples in which democratized countries fell after receiving IMF loans.[6]
In the 1960s, the IMF and the World Bank supported the government of Brazil’s military dictator Castello Branco with tens of millions of dollars of loans and credit that were denied to previous democratically-elected governments."
So if you're thinking to yourself "Are you saying mean this is all just to buy more old paradigm defending?" Hell yeah, fool! Here, take a green star for your efforts.
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And, as of this morning, it just got cheaper for the IMF and World Bank to make "loans" to developing countries, in return for which corporations seem to end up in control of public utilities and waterworks and such, as the ECB cut interest rates by 0.25%. And Trichet says it could go lower. yee-haw! Load up on free financial for third world assets!
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Lesson Learnt? The PTB has learned that the time to buy (or seize) assets is when blood is running in the streets. And unfortunately that's not a figure of speech anymore, is it?
George The Book Pimp
Thanks to the rickety time machine project, I've enjoyed a pretty clear view of where things are headed here in the Land Of the... for almost 9-years, and for longer thanks to a ton of study in the field of longwave economics. But you don't need a time machine...just an eye for good books will get you a leg up on the rest of the lemmings & sheep running about.
Not often I will come right out and pimp a book, but the arrival recently of Michael Panzner's newest (which he forgot to autograph!!!) prompts me to come right out and endorse it because it will help you navigate through the crapstorm of 'change' going on all about.
Since this morning's headline provide such a fine backdrop, here's how the inside flap begins:
"Once the embodiment of prosperity, the United States now finds itself in a precarious position. With its financial system in shambles and global standing on the wane, many believe we are witnessing the end of the American era. In When Giants Fall, author Michael Panzner puts the coming age of post-American dominance in perspective, and addresses the far-reaching effects it will have on our lives, as well as the economic opportunities that will arise from it.
With this timely guide, Panzner describes how widespread economic changes—the product of growing conflict and wars, shortages, logistical disruptions, and a breakdown of the established political and monetary order—will impact businesses as well as investors, and discusses why individuals will be forced to rethink livelihoods, lifestyles, and living arrangements. He makes the case that for many people this will be nothing short of a modern Dark Ages, where each day brings fresh anxieties, unfamiliar risks, and a sense of foreboding.
However, for those enlightened few who understand what is really going on and what will likely happen next, the chaotic years ahead may well represent a singular opportunity—a time when you can realize goals you never thought possible and achieve a level of wealth and security that leaves you head-and-shoulders above everyone else. But to do this, you will have to understand how things got to where they are today and, more importantly, how they will play out in the future. When Giants Fall answers these and many other essential questions. From an examination of key economic, political, geopolitical, and social issues to the realities of earning a living, protecting and preserving wealth, running a business, and looking after loved ones, this practical guide provides a straightforward and comprehensive game plan for surviving—and thriving—in the uniquely unsettling years ahead.
The road ahead will be fraught with challenges that will be impossible for anyone to ignore or avoid—regardless of their current circumstances. But if you understand what's going on, set out a viable plan, and remain focused, you can get through these troubled times unscathed. Engaging and informative, When Giants Fall offers cutting-edge strategies and much-needed direction that will allow you to achieve financial security and stability in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world.
So yup, run right over to Amazon and get a copy of When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era
. The economy is on a windy mountain road and we're all in this old bus with bad brakes, and it's raining and mudslides threaten...helps to have a map. It's in the same league with Robert Kaplan's the Coming Anarchy...which has also proven quit prescient.
The books only shortfall? I haven't found the reference to UrbanSurvival or Peoplenomics yet...but I'm still reading...
Implausible Deniability Department
Remember Maurice Greenberg? "AIG Problem not his fault says Greenberg: report".
Lemme see....Greenberg left AIG in 2005 was it? And AIG-FP (financial products) unit was set up when? 1987 was it? And wasn't Greenberg ultimately Joseph Cassano's boss?
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Speaking of which, have you ever looked at the Famous Drexel Alumni list? The Bond Dude has been muttering about the current econopickle: "From the people who brought you junk bonds..." Shhhh...even if this is history rhyming on the South Seas Bubble....
Auto Sales What?
Suck.
NY Times notices hope. Do they put fluoride in NYC's water?
Unemployment?
Also sucks.
Markets?
Rally. See previous question about fluoridated water in NYC.
Fueling Controversy
North Korea is reportedly fueling its rocket that they're about to test, much to the consternation of the Japan (and American) military types watching things.
Springtime Weather
A look at the radar over our part of East Texas at this hour shows a lot of rain coming down; so much so in fact that our satellite backup system is intermittent due to microwave absorption by the super-soggy clouds a whizzin' by.
I see it's storming over in Atlanta this morning, too.
And in the really really deep South - as in Australia, they're up to their armpits and higher in flooding as the flip side of hell seems to be swimming lessons. When someplace is getting nearly 12-inches of rain in six hours, it puts even our East Texas gully-washers to shame. Not that we might not exaggerate a bit about East Texas rains, mind you. Probably wouldn't be the first time that a Texas claim of 12 inches was claimed...er....
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Speaking of flooding and such: You saw where "Fargo resisted FEMA recommendation to evacuate"? I can't help but wonder whether FEMA might have had a little more credibility if the KatRita disasters (not to mention illegal arms seizures) hadn't happened? Takes a while to get over such imagery, I expect.
North Dakota is thanking South Dakota for help and Interstate 29 is reopened.
Not Yet Department
Despite a number of web sites which have popped up around the net proposing the 'end of the world' is coming from a solar 'kill shot', a sip or two of el Don features some reflection on the headline "Deep Solar Minimum" out of NASA.
"2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008."
All of which is not to say that the remote viewers who see such stuff in our future won't be right at some point in the future. It's just that the 11-year solar cycle watching ham radio operator in my (who follows this stuff because it's what drives HF radio propagation) figures that if 2008 was the solar minima, then we have 5 1/2 years until the peak of solar activity, and even then, statistically speaking, the big flares happen on the backside of the cycle --0 after the peak. So, no, I am not putting a large hole in the ground, or looking for caves deep underground like the movie "Knowing" talked about. I may be wrong, but 2014 seems a lot more likely than 2012.
On the other hand, no one gets out of life alive, anyway so WTF.
Light's Out
"CBS to flip the switch on "Guiding Light" which has been running for 72-years according to Guinness Book.
With more than 15-thousand back episodes (in fact almost 16,000) imagine how much hard drive space that would take up? No wonder we've had to develop cheap terabyte USB drives, huh?
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Coping: Humor is the Best Medicine
You may notice, if you come to this site very often, that I try to take a tongue-in-cheek, never too serious about most things approach to the daily news. Sure, there's a lot of bad news out and about, but a life lived without laughter is hardly worth the ride. So I've spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out what's funny in writing. Ever since my junior year of high school, I think it was, where Mr. Staley's English class worked on the drivers of humor and how to incorporate them into one's writing. Things like identification, embarrassment, and so forth seem to add to humor, although here lately, I've taken a liking to absurdity as a major driver of humor; but this is no doubt fueled by reading corporate 10-k's, Treasury's public debt to the penny, and the flow of funds of the United States from the Fed.
I point all this out because Bill Cosby is about to receive the Mark Twain humor prize. I admire both greatly.
Twain's best, as I recall it, was when he described how he had given up his big-city ways and become the editor of a newspaper in a farming community. In "How I edited an agricultural paper once" he uses absurdity in the same way I endeavor to report economic items:
"Concerning the Pumpkin. -- This berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front !yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin, as a shade tree, is a failure."
Absurdity comes through in Cosby's work, too. Here's a YouTube of Cosby's classic sketch about "Noah"
So it is that over the longer term, the humor of absurdity seems to wear best. The so-called 'shock" of toilet-mouthed humor doesn't last because while the "ef" word may have been a shocker to hear in a polite American society of the 1950's, I can't hardly to to the local Wal-Mart without hearing someone using the word almost completely unconsciously into their cell phone. Not that people swear more (or less) at Wal-Mart; it's just that I don't often get into such close proximity of others any more often than I have to.
Absurdity, on the other hand, and fantasy or improbable situations, plays well across time.
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Most folks don't realize the degree to which they 'program' themselves via their communications inputs. But, it shouldn't surprise anyone to find that video gamers might be more momentarily (or longer) prone to violence after playing GTA, Doom, or Castle Wolfenstein. I won't kid you: Instead of taking the 930, "Porsche Need for Speed" blows off a lot of energy and I haven't gotten a speeding ticket from my computer -- yet. Similarly, I find doing the stormy landing of a 747 in San Francisco in Microsoft Flight Simulator somehow makes the odd airplane flight a little more tolerable.
But mostly, I'm becoming anti-TV sharing to anti-media for two reasons: First, I'm more interested in collecting knowledge about things. YouTube has some remarkable lectures and content. Secondly, I really appreciate originality. So much of television is formulaic.
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But times are changing, and probably always will. (Pardon the Yogi Berra-ism). Twain (whose works you can find here) made his mark using words. Cosby was a radio and television product.
Looking ahead (assuming society hangs together) I expect that at some point, a video game will win such a prestigious award. I'd even go so far as to nominate "Leisure Suit Larry" for the award. Some of the street/gallows humor in GTA is pretty good, too. If you missed it, turn up the radio.
Back to my simple point here: Congrats to Cosby. And thank you.
This is Sick Department
"Austin ER's got 2,678 visits from 9 people over 6 years." This as a "Task force seeking ways to divert non-emergencies away from emergency rooms." Here's my contribution: Proof of citizenship, maybe?
Rising Tire Sizes
Had an interesting conversation with the fellow who runs the local performance wheel & tire emporium here in Palestine, TX Wednesday. Worth a couple of bullet points:
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Almost no tires are made in the USA any more. Until last year, there was an operation making 'em up in the Tyler Texas area. But that was shut down mostly because the largest tire that could be made there was 16-inch diameter. Which gets to the second bullet point:
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16-inch tires are quickly becoming passé. The larger the wheel diameter, the more rubber can be put on the road and 22" tires are becoming more common. I admitted my first-ever car, a 67 Ford Falcon had only 13" tires on it, which shows to go yah something about aging, doesn't it?
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The new tire balancing gear is really phenomenal. If you can sneak into the shop area (easily done in small town America, but just about impossible in you-know-what kind of retentive big city operations, look at the computer horsepower being used in tire machines. Awesome.
The trip, tires, and balancing underscored something for me: Globalists have really hosed over America. We can't be very independent from China when strategic manufacturing (like tires) has been almost entirely exported. It doesn't take a genius in military strategic planning to figure out the implications for future foreign policy, does it?
