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Albert Edwards On Terminal Competitive Devaluation, The Nuclear Option, And How The Fed's Policies May Start An All Out War
- Albert Edwards
- Ben Bernanke
- Ben Bernanke
- Bond
- Census Bureau
- Central Banks
- China
- CPI
- David Rosenberg
- default
- Double Dip
- Dylan Grice
- Eric Sprott
- Global Economy
- Gluskin Sheff
- Great Depression
- Gross Domestic Product
- Japan
- keynesianism
- Mervyn King
- Money Supply
- Recession
- recovery
- Ron Paul
- Rosenberg
- Trade Deficit
- Trade War
- Unemployment
- United Kingdom
- Yen
The recent intervention by the BOJ has quickly become the most contentious decision in global economic circles, with many wondering now that the world economy is off on a course of radical currency devaluation, who will be next, and how far will this game continue? If Albert Edwards, whose latest piece rhetorically asks (and answers) "what do devaluation, high unemployment, inequality and food prices spell? C-H-A-O-S" is correct, this could be the beginning of a rapid descent in which central banks around the world are all forced to use the nuclear option: ceaseless FX devaluation, but one coupled with an endless increase in the money supply a process which can only have one outcome - that predicted recently by Eric Sprott when he said that "we are now paying for the funeral of Keynesian theory." However, the biggest threat is that this most recent invocation of the nuclear option is coming at a time when the world is least prepared to handle it - social imbalances are at unprecedented levels, and if, as many predict, the price of key food products is about to surge (courtesy precisely of these failed central bank policies) to a point where the great unwashed end up on the wrong side of hungry, from there, to armed conflict, the line is very, very thin.
Edwards looks first at the immediate reasons that prompted Shirakawa to do what he did.
Since 2009 a cyclical recovery has been met with further yen appreciation which has been tolerated by the Japanese authorities. But with the leading indicators now topping out, yen strength is no longer tolerable (see chart above) - commentators who rightly point out that the real trade-weighted yen is not that strong have missed the point. It is the change in the currency as well as its level that helps determine export growth. A rise in an undervalued currency to a less undervalued level will still hit exports and can cause a recession.
The Japanese economy is decelerating. The PMI usually proves to be quite a good early warning of changes in the cyclical wind and it has begun to turn down decisively. (The current downturn may look moderate compared to 2008, but remember GDP contracted peak to trough by 8% during this period, one of the worst GDP declines of any industrialized nation.) The current downturn in the PMI is sufficiently bad to start ringing alarm bells - see chart below.
As expected, Japan is merely the beginning, however in a non-zero sum world of competitive currency devaluation. And because he is right, and fiat is all relative to itself, except to absolutes such as gold, those calling for a local peak in gold prices may want to reevaluate their assumptions.
Our economists made a very interesting point in the Economic News,17 Sept. They believe the BoJ?s actions may be the start of a more general period of competitive devaluation; with the US authorities tacitly allowing the US dollar to decline in an environment of QE2 (no wonder gold looks so perky!). The good news is that this is not the zero sum gain that most commentators suppose. For if all central banks are printing money to drive their currencies downward, exchange rates may not change, but the money supply does. It is easier for the US to ?guide? down the dollar with its burgeoning current account deficit, and to the extent bond yields rise as foreigners back away, the Fed will just keep printing money to hold them down!
Looking at history, the one most prominent example of coordinated devaluation was during the Great Depression, which was accompanied by the confiscation of gold. Arguably, back then it kinda, sorta worked in principle (for other reasons) if not in theory, with the argument being that devaluation can prevent deflation.
This may or may not stimulate economic activity ? I do not have the certainty of Mervyn King. But one key lesson from the 1930?s was that raising interest rates to stay on the gold standard was a mugs game (see chart below). The UK quickly came off gold, devalued and enjoyed a shallower depression than most other industrialized nations. The US followed shortly after.
Edwards takes a critical detour into a topic well-known to Zero Hedge readers: the Fed's free range authority to buy not only dometic but foreign debt (who needs FX swaps when the Fed can buy Irish debt). At least we have Ben on record telling Ron Paul he has not done so... yet.
Apparently devaluation works to head off deflation. No less than Ben Bernanke told us so in his Nov 2002 speech Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here - link. He said “The Fed can inject money into the economy in still other ways. For example, the Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt, as well as domestic government debt. Potentially, this class of assets offers huge scope for Fed operations, as the quantity of foreign assets eligible for purchase by the Fed is several times the stock of U.S. government debt.
“I need to tread carefully here. Because the economy is a complex and interconnected system, Fed purchases of the liabilities of foreign governments have the potential to affect a number of financial markets, including the market for foreign exchange…Although a policy of intervening to affect the exchange value of the dollar is nowhere on the horizon today, it's worth noting that there have been times when exchange rate policy has been an effective weapon against deflation. A striking example from U.S. history is Franklin Roosevelt's 40 percent devaluation of the dollar against gold in 1933-34, enforced by a program of gold purchases and domestic money creation. The devaluation and the rapid increase in money supply it permitted ended the U.S. deflation remarkably quickly. US CPI inflation went from -10.3% in 1932 to -5.1% in 1933 to +3.4% in 1934. The economy grew strongly, and by the way, 1934 was one of the best years of the century for the stock market. If nothing else, the episode illustrates that monetary actions can have powerful effects on the economy, even when the nominal interest rate is at or near zero, as was the case at the time of Roosevelt's devaluation.”
Hence Bernanke openly stated back in 2002 that the end game, especially when all else fails (fiscal deficit too high and QE shown to be impotent), is to print money to drive down the dollar. This is default in all but name. Investors ignore this at their peril.
All deflationists especially those with blogs and audiences - please, please read this very carefully. It tells you the blueprint for the endgame word for word.
Next, Edwards confirms what many suspect: that Japan was merely a victim of China's cunning policy to get Japan to intervene due to its own inability to devalue its currency without angering the US.
But back to the current BoJ intervention: our Chief Economist, Michala Marcussen, thinks that the Chinese, in starting to buy Japanese assets, have pushed up the yen and effectively forced the BoJ to intervene. She writes, “China may thus be the big winner from Japan’s intervention; winning on three levels (1) diversifying reserves (albeit still only a small amount) and reducing its exposure to the US dollar, (2) escaping the title of currency manipulator, and (3) placing Japan in the hot seat ahead of the G20, thus detracting attention away from itself." -? link.
I would contend that China is now playing a very, very dangerous game. With the US trade deficit deteriorating again (see top right-hand chart above), and ? much to my surprise - the Chinese trade surplus widening, patience is rapidly running out in the US with China?s currency policies. I believe we are now nearer to an outbreak of trade war than at any time since the 1930s. Any downturn in the global economy back into recession would almost certainly guarantee such a result, as the political pressure to do something mounts.
Yet even without a trade war or competitive devaluation, any descent back into outright recession will result in intolerable social stress. We had previously highlighted the extreme levels of income inequality that prevailed even before this crisis.
In addition to the inequality, absolute levels of poverty have been exacerbated by this recession. The US Census Bureau last week published a report showing that 43.6 million people were living below the poverty line, a 50-year high- link.
For those curious why we posted the BIS report on core differences between Japanese and US households, hopefully this explains it (and those who wish to reread it, may do so here). Going into a double dip, a redepression, or a brand new recession, whatever the semantics, with the current level of developed world inequality is recipe for social disaster, and possible civil war.
Inequality, unemployment and poverty are all at crisis levels in the immediate aftermath of this financial and economic debacle. To put it into a human context, one snippet caught my eye. David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff believes conditions now are so bad that they can be reasonably described as a depression. He reported a few weeks back that “In a depression, radical changes occur in terms of social norms and spending behavior. In recessions people don’t cancel their life insurance policies – as one example. But in a depression, tragically, this is what happens – almost 35 million Americans (a third of US households) now have no such coverage, up from 24 million five years ago. This reflects the focus by households to pay down debts at all costs and how companies have bolstered profits, by eliminating benefits (see ?More Go Without Life Insurance’ ? WSJ 29 Aug -? link)."
Many commentators, including myself, believe it is no accident that before this crisis inequality in the US and the UK reached extreme levels. Many believe there is a causal relationship from extreme levels of inequality to the crisis. How? Central bankers, by pursuing policies thatallowed the middle classes to borrow against rising asset prices, kept them consuming despite the stagnation of their incomes and hence disguised the effect of government policies that allowed the rich to acquire virtually all of the gains in GDP growth. - link.
Additionally, this is not merely a horizontal event, but a vertical one, as one class steals from the future of all other classes.
And in the process of ?robbing? the middle classes and now still attempting to keep asset prices artificially high, they are also robbing our children of the ability to buy a house at an affordable price. Yet central bankers still see QE as key to maintaining the illusion of prosperity and stoking consumer spending! I will write more about the role of high levels of inequality in causing the recent crisis in a future paper (James Montier has passed me some interesting papers). But with youth unemployment rocketing in recent years (can you believe it is 40% in Spain), policymakers had better start manning the barricades for the backlash. For as my mother used to say "?the devil makes work for idle hands”.
Lastly, to provide all the ingredients for social upheaval, not only is social inequality at all time records, but soon, courtesy of the very same policies adopted by the central banks, the great unwashed mass may soon have little if anything to eat.
For one idea of what might drive the poor to breaking point in the coming years, read my colleague Dylan Grice?s excellent report on the likelihood that we will see a structural spike in higher grain prices from these already high levels - link! For he notes that the grain markets today are at a very similar level of tightness to the oil market in the early 1970?s when the US turned into a substantial oil importer. This made the market very vulnerable to a supply shock (such as the 1973 Arab embargo), in a way that it wasn?t in 1967. China is in that same situation today for grains (see chart below). If the devil makes work for idle hands, history is full of examples of what happens when those same hands are owned by the poor and hungry.
So for all those who have been wondering if Mike Krieger, and recently Nic Lenoir's anger at visualizing precisely the scenario where the Fed's ongoing disastrous policies result in social and/or global war are overblown, the answer is no. We are getting to the point where absent a dramatic intervention in the Fed's all or nothing gamble on preserving Keynesianism will almost certainly result in armed conflict. And if those who know and understand this do not act, nobody else will. The ability to postpone that most critical intervention in this generation's lifetime is ending. Very soon we will have only ourselves to blame for not having done the right thing. We hope by then it is not too late.
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we're already at war. and have been for some time. please specify because while i'm not too picky when it comes to stocks ("you mean you're suppose to pick these things?") i sure am when it comes to war. i'm on the fence when it comes to women, however. isn't it suppose to be the other way around when it comes to "the W."
WW III. Bring it. We NEED it. Whole planet is full of worthless people that feel they're entitled to all kinds of things, as a basic matter of fact. Everyone's special. War. Bring it.
THIN THE HERD
Funny-bone reality is that mass starvation will once again be the norm.
Hard-core history loses to slick mass-media.
The potential of dying of an empty stomach just isn't on the mind of the Western world these days.
Sad.
That that wheel must be reinvented.
Most people in the US have no concept of going hungry or thirsty. If it ever happens, I guarantee the affected people will never forget it if they survive. It is a life changer.
I read that as Eddie Albert, stupid song... can't get it out of my head. ....Grreeeeeen Acres is the place for me
Even so, Eddie was a decorated war hero for his actions at Tarawa. I still enjoy that show.
cossack55
Prior to World War II, and before his film career, Albert had toured Mexico as a clown and high-wire artist with the Escalante Brothers Circus, but secretly worked for U.S. Army intelligence, photographing German U-boats in Mexican harbors.[3] On September 9, 1942, Albert enlisted in the United States Navy and was discharged in 1943 to accept an appointment as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. A genuine war hero, he was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for his actions during the invasion of Tarawa in November, 1943, when, as the pilot of a U.S. Coast Guard landing craft, he rescued 47 Marines who were stranded offshore (and supervised the rescue of 30 others), while under heavy enemy machine-gun fire.[4]
ActivismAlbert was active in social and environmental causes especially from 1970s onward. Beginning in the 1940s, his Eddie Albert Productions produced films for various U.S. corporations, as well as documentaries such as Human Beginnings (a for-its-time controversial sex education film) and Human Growth.[7] Albert also narrated and starred in a 1970 film promoting views of the Weyerhaeuser company, a major international logging concern.[8][9][10]
He was special envoy for Meals for Millions and consultant for the World Hunger Conference.[11] He joined Albert Schweitzer in a documentary about African malnutrition [12][13] and fought agricultural and industrial pollution, particularly DDT.[11] Albert promoted organic gardening and founded City Children's Farms for inner-city children,[14] while supporting eco-farming and tree planting.[15] He was national chairman for the Boy Scouts of America's conservation program and founded the "Eddie Albert World Trees Foundation." Albert was a trustee of the National Recreation and Park Association and a member of the U.S. Department of Energy's advisory board. This notable activism led TV Guide magazine to call him "an ecological Paul Revere."[16]
Albert was also a director of the U.S. Council on Refugees[17][18] and participated in the creation of Earth Day and spoke at its inaugural ceremony in 1970.[11] (Despite rumors that Earth Day was designated to occur on Albert's birthday, April 22, sources suggest that the date was coincidental.)
http://askville.amazon.com/Eddie-Albert-movie-personality-inventor/Answe...
Drinking bird is for sale here
Apparently the Edmund Scientific Catalog trivia section credits Eddie Albert, of Green Acres fame, for inventing this item. They are 2 for $7.95 at this site. It works because the weight is distributed perfectly to allow the bird to swing to and fro. The glass bottom gives the impression of it "drinking" as it bobs forward and the fluid goes up it's neck, then back again. The force of the fluid moving is enough to keep the bird moving.Thanks Gully,
What a life... Fine example of a man during the Greatest Generation.
Now back to the Greatest Degeneration, Nancy P, Al G, GW, Barry O, Barny F, Bill and Hill. WTF!
Twas all so much easier than robbing trains and blowing safes. Not nearly the fun though.
Just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, you have to go down the rabbit hole a bit further.
Today's FOMC report will require you to start with FRED®. FRED will tell you to speak with ALFRED®, ALFRED will tell you to speak with FRASER®.
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
Study the charts. Begin with 2001 shaded FRED area. Chart recession vs money injection. It only takes one line to distinguish the cover up & lies.
Let's use 1961 for example
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/BusCycD/1961/download/2857/BCD_121961.pdf
The end game is war. Iraq and Afghanistan were trial runs for the big one. When all else fails you swing for fences.
"I speak in the name of the entire German people when I assure the world that we all share the honest wish to eliminate the enmity that brings far more costs than any possible benefits... It would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity if both peoples would renounce force against each other forever. The German people are ready to make such a pledge."
Adolf Hitler - 14th October 1933
Great article! It's good to see an appreciation for the Chinese skill in the game.
Regarding "social imbalances are at unprecedented levels, and if, as many predict, the price of key food products is about to surge (courtesy precisely of these failed central bank policies) to a point where the great unwashed end up on the wrong side of hungry, from there, to armed conflict, the line is very, very thin," it's tempting to see this primarily as a threat within EM and third world countries, but they've been through it many times before.
We, on the other hand, have not. I would strongly advise that TPTB keep those unemployment checks coming.
> I would strongly advise that TPTB keep those unemployment checks coming.
Why? So that even more people will starve? If we had the crash way back in the '90's it would have been bad but not as bad as if we had the crash in 2001, which would have been horrible but not as bad as if we had the crash in the mid 2000's which would have been terrible but not as bad as if we would have had the crash in 2007-8 which would have been devistating but not as bad as if we have the crash in 2010 which would not be as bad as if we wait ANY LONGER. The crash will CLEANSE the system, but the more we put it off the more people will die.
The unemployment cheques should have stopped way back in 1971.
+ a lot
But this collapse isn't going to clean anything, imho. Just going to usher in martial law. Feeling cynical today.
You think?
$5.5 million! Geez, almost as much as the banksters walked away with (and no battering rams have appeared on Their doorsteps!).
Remember: the relevancy of mass media news is inversely proportional to the interests of a free society.
+1
$5.5 million? chump change for bankstas.
shoe shine money.
Great article? Stupid article you should say. Where is the continuity? Not so long ago, an article by a top guy was published claiming that the success of the US was the result of having the highest GINI vs income ratio.
Here, you get the reverse that the inequality in revenues is the source of the disease.
An incredible mish potatoe by the way. The guy wrote that the bankers have been stealing from the middle class by allowing them to consume beyond their capacity. Stunning.
There will be no war. Keeping to depict China as the source of the disease when actually it is only the expansion policy led by the West that is going to its natural course end, well, that is keeping attention out of the real issue.
One needs a Masters Degree in Quantam Physics to invest in this Market. With a Minor Master Degree in World Ecomonics. No wonder why every one is withdrawing their money.
+1
"One needs a Masters Degree in Quantum Physics to invest in this Market. With a Minor Master Degree in World Economics. No wonder why every one is withdrawing their money."
I dissagree with this. Surely you realize that you need an inside man to know where the daily dollah game and the direction of the Pomo Pump are headed.
For me, PM's (all I can carry) are becoming the surest way to retain wealth.
+1000
It's called organized crime. Don't buy your adjudication and protection services from a monopoly provider (called the "state"-- stop paying all taxes) and don't use monopoly money. Use anything of value but not their instruments of fraud and control. Don't play their game. Unite and get your protection services ready for when they attack you, as the criminal parasites that they are they cannot tolerate an honest voluntary exchange as no one would "buy" their so called "services".
Did you folks forget about the Davos meeting?
Davos Annual Meeting 2010 - From Copenhagen to Mexico
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4i-jZJpLjk
Nevermind, I forgot that your suppose to forget.
Damn that Davros! Just when you think he's dead and out of the picture, the Daleks revive him. Then he starts his mischief all over again. And I don't think the New Doctor is tough enough to handle him if he starts messing with the economy.
EXTERMINATE! <bzzzzzz>
But really, that's a great idea! Send Daleks to Davos!
Not intending to date myself but.........
The classic historical paradigm pf endless round robin beggar thy neighbours devaluation is pre-Euro Europe. Policies of continual devaluationsby governments with the explicit intention of stimulating economic activity through increased exports by making them cheaper and thus more attractive for foreign buyers were the actions du jour. (Along with the Unintended Consequence of significantly higher domestic inflation caused by additional monetary creation and increased import prices.)
Now, during those same times, European partner central banks rarely participated actively in another's devaluation as such would create populist backlash for their respective political class. So, essentially the same monetary/export driven phenomenona as is being presently pursued globally and the outcry against recent unilateral Japanese actions.
Moreover, the European economies at that time and carrying over to the present, have tended to experience higher marginal tax rates, greater share of GDP's subsumed by their governments and greater regulatory burdens, which all together generated the persistent Eurosclerosis of Stag-Flation.
I draw no intended parallel to the US's present situation, for at the moment enough excess reserves populate the banking system so as to make Zimbabwe look prudent, and should "V" (velocity of money as in MV=PT) recover, which it will some day, then our current overall measuredlevels of inflation will reverse quickly and mightily.
$100 Trillion Dollar Bill from Zimbabwe
Sincet the inflation rate of Zimbabwe exceeded 231,000,000% (that was the official rate, some economists believe that it was actually 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000%), the country had been issuing $100 trillion dollar bills! Therefore, if you own one of these bills, you are technically a trillionaire (in Zimbabwe dollars). These bills from antiquestocks.com would make great Birthday Card or Christmas Card stuffers. Turn your friends and relatives into trillionaires! Since the government of Zimbabwe has now allowed the use of international currencies, including the US Dollar, they are no longer printing the $100 trillion banknote. Get these now while you still can.
http://antiquestocks.stores.yahoo.net/whowatobetr1.html
...along these lines...when I was growing up I remember a friend's parents papering their downstairs half bath with German bonds...it left a lasting impression on me...the people who bought those bonds originally thought they were as good as gold...after all, they were backed by the German government.
10 bucks for one sheet of toilet paper??!
My Mother said that there would eventually be no Middle Class. Interesting she died in 1989.
I believed her and worked very hard, saved, lived under my means to built up my reserves so that my Children would not be the ones that were poor. Built up assests that would be passed on to them so they could build on them. I cannot tell you how glad I listened to her. Well, I am not Rich, Rich but I am not poor. I guess the lesson is listen to your Mother.
Your mom was wise. That is the inevitable outcome of unregulated capitalism. Wealth (and power) only gets more concentrated, not evenly spread. The process was interdicted several times during US history through political force to re-establish equilibrium (Jefferson, Jackson, T. Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt). In between there are long periods of laissez faire where the middle class disintegrates and the ranks of the extremely wealthy and poor swell. We're fast reaching terminal stages of the process right now. Solutions have not been forthcoming yet.
Yeah American capitalism is just so darn unregulated these days!
What we're approaching the end of is the welfare state and government-corporate collusion, a perversion of capitalism with the misnomer "crony-capitalism".
Your homework is to outline the "long periods of laissez faire" capitalism this country experienced.
+100
Who, exactly, should regulate my right to conduct my own own economic affairs? Whose business is it how I - or anyone else for that matter - deploy my own capital? Capitalism is nothing more than the God-given freedom to exercise one's own economic prerogitives as one chooses. Be VERY CAREFUL when you suggest that the rights to private property (i.e., capital) are subject to the whims and regulations of others - it leads invariably to totalitarianism. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "capitalism is the worst of all economic systems...except for all the others."
And, sadly, it leads to what we're now seeing. Concentration of wealth needs protection, enter fascism...
All of this is meaningless in the face of diminishing resources and increasing population. It's the Olduvai Theory (Duncan) materializing.
Fascism is always and everwhere an outgrowth of socialism with demagogical(or nationalistic) twist. Think socialist nationalism, or national socialism, or Nazi for short. You might want to come up with a different name for what you think ails us. The current bunch in Washington are up to instrumentalising private property, confiscating large parts of the economy in all except formalities, to their whims. Whim A being consolidating their power. Whim B being to impose their la-la land, detached from reality, academicoid sense of social justice, and similar such murderous goals. Yeah, murderous.
Without the internet, I would have been subject to local propaganda regarding our economic situation. Now that the internet is here, I can go and get a decent approximation of what is happening and attempt to make a comparison to the past. Well, FDR had a propaganda machine in place to tell we the people what was going on--and we believed it--FDR wrote history as he wanted it to appear. Before that they had telegraphs and the pony express in place-so you can imagine that the view of history we get from back then is as scewed as the writers were dishonest (we hope they were honest). Now, the internet will give you almost every possible view of an event in almost real time. The same BS that our government has pulled in the past and then glosed it over will not work today. There will now ALWAYS be at least a considerable segment of people that see through it. Facism will not work without purges today. No one is going to buy the BS. Comparisons to the old dead presidents or old dead chancellors for that matter-to today is just going to cause confusion. Our presidents today are impotent compared to those guys. The only person of any circumstance today that seems to be a throwback to the old days is Putin. Watch out for him-he could actually get an effective nationalistic movement with world wide consequences started. The rest of the leaders are either impotent or inconsequential (Kim jung-Il).
And so we see why regulation of the internet is such a hot topic these days...
Moms are smart;>} Working hard was a way to get out of poverty for both my immigrant parents. This was the promise America offerred, and it was true. They taught by example, and we learned.
Not exactly... Working hard is working HARD. Working Smart is smart!
Poverty, the appearance of it anyway, was escaped because there was excess. Has nothing to do with how hard one works: I've seen a ton of hard-working poverty-stricken people in Manila; the chances of them escaping poverty is just shy of zero (that's why many become second-class people in other countries eeking out a bit of extra money [to send back home]).
The hard-work-will-give-rewards is a myth that TPTB perpetuate, kind of like fairy tales about kissing frogs. Trickle-down has been around for a LONG, LONG time...
"Poverty, the appearance of it anyway, was escaped because there was excess. "
Excess occurs when people specialize, say in shoe making only, and thus produce a LOT more shoes than they need themselves, and generally more efficiently and with better results than when each family cobbles together its own shoes. Anyway, their whole idea is to sell their extra shoes in exchange for the ability to barter (or buy) things and services made by others who also chosen to specialize. The cobbler gets efficiently made bread of better quality and lower cost because he supplies the bread maker shoes of lower cost and higher quality.
But you are trying to tell us poverty is escaped "because there was excess." Hell no. It happened because everyone was working in their own interests, marshalling their own skills and resources more efficiently, and TRADING their ever more efficiently produced goods and services(your "excess"). The concept extends to whole countries...see Smith, Adam "The Wealth of Nations." The less dampened this process is, by regulation, taxation, and especially outright confiscation, the more and better "excess" gets produced, and the cost of acheiving a particular degree of lifestyle ease reduces over time. Simple.
Note that poverty and inequality are much now worse in America after four years of Pelosi/Reid, and two with their lapdog in the white house signing every insane interference program they come up with. That's what happens when government interferes with the people.
Impeach or resign Obama
Glass/Steagall or die
North American Water And Power Act
Four Powers Plan for CREDIT SYSTEM, not MONETARY system
It's really that simple. Then we can get started on >10,000 Nuclear power plants/Fusion research, REAL SPACE PROGRAM, h3 on moon
Fusion arc...you know so you can reassemble matter on the atomic scale and realistically turn Hydrogen into Steel, or Uraniuml, or GOLD ha ha. ALL in our future. No need to fight over declining reserves when you can CREATE YOUR OWN. Remember folks ~99.9% percent of what's in the Universe is HYDROGEN. No need to run out. That is if we don't let wall street, big corporations, and the Queen of England want to CONTINUE to keep us down and strangle the supply from everyone for EARTH'S bullshit sake.
Impeach Nero, laugh at the republicans for their never ending idiocy, and fix this damn mess.
This economic down turn was 100 percent planned. Why? The 100 percent solutions were on their desks, and they CHOSE not to use them. Solutions on the desk of congress since 2007, and none are being done, even now three years and the truth readily apparent to everybody. They still won't do the EASY, right thing. Want to stop this collapse? Pass the bills in congress since BEFORE IT HAPPENED. Demand it. Because they are sitting there. Better hurry, because the dipshit republicans will never do them. (thus a recovery will never happen under ANY republican NON-leadership)
Fix the system, it's EASY. Or die, which is permanent. Your choice. Make the right one. (or be forever labelled amongst the biggest fucking idiots EVER). All of this is 100 percent true, don't blame me if you've been brainwashed into complete idiocy. Fascism is here, has been for a while (brought to you by the Republican party), and is about to get much, much worse (brought to you by BOTH the republican and now DEMOCRAT party).
Cancel the bailouts, use the money to build REAL WEALTH.
Some good reading....
How Adam Smith fooled you suckers!:http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15815
FDR vs. The Futurists: The Future of Libraries
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15771
It was no conspiracy! MACARTHUR & EISENHOWERhttp://www.larouchepac.com/node/15819
Lyndon LaRouche Address to Summer Shields Campaign Four Powers Conference
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15829
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15832
Want to see a real candidate address some issues, plus some other video footage of the dem(republican)ocrat party? These are the types of people we need in office. Not the retards in both party that suck each others cocks non-stop in a circle jerk resembling hands across america.
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15823
Wake up people, or die. Your choice, and one you'll make whether you stick your head in the sand or not.
Of course it's easier to just to go here...bookmark the below, and add to your daily reading.
http://www.larouchepac.com/updates
One final thing from a week or so ago
The takedown of Glass/Steagall
http://www.larouchepac.com/gsfilm
Politicians are like spark plugs. You can only replace them with something nearly identical or the engine stops working.
Vote
Reload
Vote again!
Interesting.
it stretches credibility when all links are from same source. What ever, its too late, the cake was left out in the rain and the "fat lady is singing now." The other shoe is about to drop and be the straw that broke the camels back leaving us all up a creek witout a paddle.
Lyndon LaDouche' is a commy pinko' lil' Bitch'e Boo
He's dressed up his website trying to grab market share from the sheeple ... he might pull 1,000 vote across this country, not bad ...
Thankyou, I just printed all that out and now I have something to line my bird cage with, cheers!!!
This statement was about all I could agree with. Every person of any intellectual ability knows what the situation is, and what will happen. Nothing is done due to momentum, and the treasury is not quite looted completely. They are working on it diligently.
The rest of your comment is not going to be implemented for the reasons I gave above.
I did not junk you.
I stopped at,
"Fusion arc...you know so you can reassemble matter on the atomic scale and realistically turn Hydrogen into Steel, or Uraniuml, or GOLD ha ha."
I think your idea of building, energetically speaking, a reverse atomic bomb, i.e. putting IN the energy that a bomb would give OUT so at to obtain a few kilos (grams?) of higher elements (and probably only trace quantities of the metal you appear to be after) is a bit far-fetched.
Wow a hoard of angry, hungry, in debt, young people with no future causes problems? Who would have thought? /sarcasm
To think that the big players don't know what is happening is silly. Even if they were stone dead retarded surly some adviser somewhere in their ranks would have come across ZH or some other signal or sanity in their life. So we are left with they know what they are doing, they know what it will cause, and either they don't care or it's part of the goal or they see it as a necessary evil to keep the looting train rolling down the tracks.
And sure the idea of a war scares the shit out of me, still being in draft age and all. But at this point the best thing we can do is batten down the hatches, make sure our friends and loved ones are informed and prepared as much as possible, and then be the lone voice in the wilderness warning people. History tells us the masses won't listen to us, so we need to look at what could happen.
On the plus side if everything goes to pot at once maybe it will just be rioting and localized civil wars and not WW3. Gotta hope for the best.
And what of all of our returning soldiers? Far too many of them signed up for the service because there are no jobs for young people. Well, they've finished their job in Iraq for Corporate America and now they're coming home. To no jobs.
This is probably unpatriotic to mention, but shouldn't the people they were fighting for now pony up and put them to work? (Yeah, I'm a dreamer.)
Fact: about 20,000 soldiers and their families have returned to Ft. Lewis (near Tacoma) in the past few months. It's clogging the hell out of the local infrastructure. About the only upside I can see is a short term surge in rentals and retail business within 25 miles of the fort. And that ends when the soldiers transition back to being civilians. I'm sure this same scenario is being played out at forts across the U.S.
So what are these people going to do now that they're being phased out of their make work project in Iraq? The only answers I can come up with that make any sense do not bode well for either the vets or those competing with them for non-existent jobs.
They can milk their VA Educational benefit for a long time to get by. I don't see any reason to give them priority for jobs, though in many places they get it nonetheless. This has been nothing but a destructive war all the way around, as you point out.
Hmmm it seems that history dealt with this problem...hmmm what happened after the GI's came home from WW2? Oh that's right a massive boom as the US was freed from the burden of massive military spending
Military jobs are not productive. They steal real wealth and waste it. That money has to come from somewhere. So instead of a small business owner having the money to expand his business Uncle Sugar appropriates it to spend on murdering brown people around the world. If we had a somewhat sane military budget you think that with more money in their pocket people would spend more and the demand for goods and services might be higher?
By the way you just contradicted yourself. If they were fighting for me, then why did they sign up because there was no jobs? It's one or the other Doc. They either love their country and don't want to see it sink into insolvency (to late) or they are mercs who signed up for a paycheck. So if they are patriotic then they will make sacrifices for the country they love. If they are mercs then a paycheck is a paycheck.
Prolonging the agony of reckless military spending does no one any good. Military spending is a huge waste of funds. Particularly to our level. We spend about the same as the rest fo the planet, and yet we are stuck in a quagmire fighting guys from the stone age with antiquated weapons. Hardly a good ROI. War is a cancer, it robs and steals and never gives anything back to the common man.
While I wasn't picking a fight here, I'll take up the challenge to my logic.
Way too many of these kids don't have any job choices at all. The greatest proportion of new recruits come from places with low population and near zero job prospects. That's why so many of the U.S. dead from the current wars are from places nobody has ever heard of.
They're mercenaries the same way the rest of us are mercenaries. They take a job because they want to have a future. It's a shit job, doing something counterproductive, but it's a job. Mom and Dad can't and won't support these kids because they're dirt poor too, and have the good old American work ethic.
Family and peer pressure is strong in the 18-30 year old demographic. I did a lot of stupid shit when I was that age that nobody in their right mind would do. And anybody who says they didn't is a liar.
In small town America, you're expected to join "the service" and make something of yourself. And a lot of young people choose the easy way, because for many of them, it's the only choice they can see. Swimming against the tide of public opinion is not an option for most of us.
I know many of these people. They're not what I consider 'well-informed' but they are very earnest and mostly hard workers. At least, they're hard workers compared to the local college kids I see.
Sure, their heads are full of bullshit from too much Fux News and no reading. But they're not evil, they're just 'other' to my world view. Unfortunately, their programming makes them very easy to push directly into the dominant paradigm. So they end up as soldiers because it's 'the right thing to do.'
Now I've never worked for the military establishment and I've never worked for defense contractors. But that's because I had a choice, and I took it. But when times were tough and jobs were scarce, I admit I considered defense jobs despite my beliefs. Fortunately for my 'powerful ethics,' something else came available for a little less money, so I took it instead. Bravo for me, I'm a fucking hero in my own mind.
The real fact I'm trying to put out here is not that war is an evil philosphical construct. I'm pointing out that in this real U.S. that I inhabit, there are hundreds of thousands of returning soldiers. They did what they were ordered to do, and now they're being phased out of the military and back onto the streets of the towns where they came from.
What do we do with them? No really, what do we do with them?
We can love their stint as soldiers, or loathe them for it. Either way, they're not going away, and they need a life. They need jobs, places to live and all the stuff they thought they might get a piece of by joining the Army or Marines. (The Air Force kids are okay, they're probably getting jobs creating HFT algorithms with their training and experience with weapons systems.)
This is NOT a question of whether we like what they do, this is a question of where do they go now that they're back from their jobs working for the Masters of War.
The cancer analogy is apt. You can deal with it, or you can ignore it. But it's still cancer.
Right these kids take the jobs because they don't know any better and need money. That's a merc. And yeah we are all mercs to our jobs, and? Why are is the military magically elevated? I had a friend who was a supply clerk in SKorea for most of his tour, so why should he get special treatment for taking a tax feeder job for the military industrial complex? Hell should we not return returning Blackwater killers with the same respect? Are they not doing the exact same job? Hell I can argue that their kill count is higher and that's what war is about right?
Why should a vet get preferential treatment above a moral man who chose not to go into the business of killing? The truth is things are bad all over. The fact that you did a job or didn't do a job should not magically grant one special privilege. Who will provide jobs to the good young men with little education to trying to raise a family? Who will supply jobs for the old people who can't make ends meet after losing their retirement to a scam? We are all in a bad way, they don't get a pass for getting conned to fight for the Bankers in their wars of profit.
They will come back and rot in the same prison as the rest of us. We have chosen to let ourselves be looted and America will collapse. The cancer has already killed us, we are just the walking dead. But hey the glass is half full, those returning vets should know how to handle themselves when the violence goes down.
If one was looking for a real answer for the vets they would be talking about killing the spending, bringing the troops home, and ending the military industrial complex. People who glorify the troops for their service to the bankers only prolong the problem and try to mask the sickness. War is a racket, always has been, always will be.
I'm reading your comments/replies with great interest. An aside: I did my 4 year Air Force stint and got out the second I could. I'd just like to point out that there is a big difference between returning WWII GIs and Vietnam Vets and today's returning soldiers. All the former were conscripted, the current crop are volunteers. Regardless of the reason, needing a "job" or not, a volunteer does not deserve any more consideration in getting a job that any other citizen. When the country takes a man's efforts in war by forcing him to fight, that is one thing. When he volunteers, that is another. Giving a vet a job because we FEAR what he might do indicates that there is something terribly wrong with the system as it exists. My meager contribution, thank you.
Jesus Fucking Christ, what the hell are you talking about? As far as I remember, nobody here has even hinted at the idea that we magically elevate the military or levitate large objects.
I hear that you're somewhat dispeptic about how the military is used. Fine, occasionally it bothers my tummy a little too.
You're the one who brought up the idea of special benefits for vets. I don't think we should go there. If anybody wants to give special benefits to the vets, it should be the assholes who profited from their deployment.
War = bad.
Misrepresenting Dr. Sandi's words = bad
Go shit on somebody else; we agree on pretty much every point. Maybe you need something at home you can punch.
You were the one talking about jobs for these vets. Now in common parlance that means favoritism when you pick a minority of the population and champion their cause. If you talked about jobs in general this conversation would have never happened, but you focused on a subset of the population. After all a lot of the general pop is concerned with work. By focusing on that subset you made implied that they are somehow special. If you believe that these people have the same rights as other citizens then cool, me too. But when you pick out a specific group to showcase that pretty much comes out and says "This group is special and must be treated as such".
Now had you said "Man it sucks out there people should be able to get jobs" no misunderstand, but look at what you wrote and you'll see even if unintentional it sounds like you are proposing that it's not fair that vets come home and find no work. But you did not say it was not fair for non vets to also have no work.
Fair has nothing to do with it. We are all fucked, big time.
But I am quite concerned about how we're just dumping the Iraq/Afghan vets back on the streets with nothing to do and not much hope of a future. And a very large percentage of them are far more fucked up now than they were when they enlisted. This is not good. And yet, I don't hear anybody talking about it, and that scares the shi'ite out of me.
The non-vets are gradually arriving on the desertscape in dribs and drabs as they leave school, get out of jail or whatever else they do with their time. And that's a nasty reality. But it's like acid, slowly burning a hole in the fabric of the society.
However, the vets are going to be released in large numbers over the next year or so. A huge gob of them will appear in the system all at once. That's more like a bayonet quickly ripping a hole in the spot in our societal fabric, right next to the acid burn.
I don't have an answer. I just barely started figuring out that we have yet another major national problem that we appear to be intentionally not dealing with.
I am not happy with the way my birthday party turned out.
You Sir are a miserable idiot. You think this is WWII or Korea or Vietnam? Recruits coming back from the war and walking around small time USA like Johnny Rambo? Most of the returning soldiers are re-enlisting and returning in country for multiple tours. The ones that dont are picked up by police departments and other businesses. Don't confuse the soldiers with the evil bastards that are running the banks or the country. Most soldiers believe that Iraq without Saddam and his sons is better now than with them. Most believe that giving the Afghans the chance to run their own lives instead of been terrorized by the Pakistani Intelligence forces is a good thing. I personally don't believe it will make a bit of a difference in Afghanistan. You must want to be free in order to live free. They don't. Its been a waste of everyones time and money. That still does not demean or cheapen the efforts of the ones how tried to help. You do not course a fireman because the house burned down despite his efforts. You do not course a surgeon that could not save the life of a terminal patient. Yet you course those who tried to help others live free. Fuck you.
Talk about drinking the Kool Aid!
"Most soldiers believe that Iraq without Saddam and his sons is better now than with them. Most believe that giving the Afghans the chance to run their own lives instead of been terrorized by the Pakistani Intelligence forces is a good thing."
If you feel so strongly then YOU get your butt over there and do IT for those people over THERE!
We've got sanctioned MURDER running rampant and you're saying that they're all there in appreciation of creating a better world? Bull Fucking Shit!
I was specifically trained to murder by the US government. People just can't accept THIS (that that's what the military is about) fact!
Get fucking educated. Read what one of my heroes -Smedley Butler- has to say about all this shit. Or, perhaps this from Col. Karen Kwaitkowski (ret):
War Is Murderhttp://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski256.html
Your mentality is going to perish, I assure you!
I got fucking educated you moron. And I have been there. 3 times. Not as a soldier, but providing support in building infrastructure. Stop doing your research in someone else's psychosis. I bet you wear a "Save Darfur, and the whales too" t-shirt. Yeah, I know. Except for ending slavery, Nazism and fascism, War is good for absolutely nothing.
"Military jobs are not productive. They steal real wealth and waste it. That money has to come from somewhere."
There will always be empires extracting wealth from other regions, might as well be us.
"There will always be empires extracting wealth from other regions, might as well be us."
Yeah, until we can't anymore, because of economic collapse! One good thing about this militarism is that it will take the State down with it. With enough rope...
We could have bought the fucking Iraqi oil for a hell of a lot less.
That is waaaay too true. But the problem is that it's not just about the oil. It's about turning over half of our national treasure to the people who do wars for a living.
Every single congressional district in the country has people making stuff for current and future wars. Whether it's building aircraft, making military rations, upholstering Stryker seats, or just making milspec toilet paper, millions of us have a job making crap for the war effort. And for everybody who has a real job making these bogus products, there are two more low-paid service jobs depending on the war worker.
A lot of us here know this. Those who don't, hey guys, think about it. The don't call it the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex just because it rolls off the tongue so easily.
If America stopped making war, a big chunk of our remaining production industry would be idled.
War isn't pretty, but it's profitable as HELL.
Profitable for individual companies, not profitable for the country at large. Could have been, if we'd gotten some sweet oil contracts from Iraq. But no, worried about his image, Bush stood aside and let China get the contracts.
"There will always be empires extracting wealth from other regions, might as well be us."
"Fake wealth"; if you meant your statement then you deserve what is coming to the oligarchs, for it is their sentiment you reflect.
Shameful, you call to reduce military spending is a siren song heard by europeans many decades ago. They didn't invest the savings though. They spent it on vote buying and dependency building programs. Now Europe is a nearly defenseless economic and demographic basket case where cities shut down for days over increasing the retirement age from 60 to 62.....or over a gunman fleeing from an armed casino robbery, being chased by police, shooting while he's at it, gets shot by the police, and said gunman happens to be a career criminal from the ethnicity that must not be named.
I would argue this happened over there in part because they chose butter over guns, and especially because the US gave them this choice, by providing for theirs and the rest of the world's security FOR FREE. I'm pissed about it, but not too pissed, because the free-er world we live in is heavily engaged in trade, making us all richer. On balance, let's keep policing the world's sea lanes and keeping right up in the faces of dangerous tyrannies, without the least moment of pause. I think even the current feint by four year wonder Obama toward massaging and placating these sociopath's ambitions will be paid for in blood later.
The troops are coming back from the wars and getting hired by police departments around the country. They fear the angry, hungry, disenchanted youths I guess. Oh yeah, they're also getting hired by Blackwater and other mercenary outfits to replace the troops being pulled from Iraq. Hey, at least they can say we're cutting back on troops, even if we're paying a mercenary to gake his/her place. It's about marketing to the sheep, baby.
Dr. Sandi
"So what are these people going to do now that they're being phased out of their make work project in Iraq? '
There is always Iran...
True, but Canada probably has as much oil in the tar sands as Iran has underground, and Canada is way closer. Why pick on somebody who's expecting you to attack when you can sneak up on the neighbors?
Indeed, and the Albertans could finally get high quality health care at a moments notice, rather than living for weeks and months in pain waiting for an appointment! We should make it about freeing canadians from their health care system nightmare, and not make it all about oil. No WMD up there I guess, though it is fair to assume there are a lot terroristy types among the third world immigration they've got.
they'll go to work for the highest paying of the American underworld the same as the Speznaz did on their return to "civilian" life, or go inoto"business" for themselves.
this is one of the main reasons i'm optimistic the US wont end up as a complete Police state, because martial law is likely difficult to enforce when there's as many disgruntled (and well armed) ex soldiers around as there are disgruntled (current) army.
It may be a good idea to launch a new "Screw The Draft" movement online to get out in front of this thing and shape the message before the call to fight the War For The Banksters, a.k.a, "Freedom", actually comes. Kids ain't as stupidly naive as they used to be, but they will need an organized counter-message.
Maybe, but I know a lot of people who have/are in service and a lot of it was job related. With the bad economic situation more are signing up. Doesn't help that we have been brainwashed about the "glory and honor" of the military since childhood. And when the next war starts the propaganda will be dialed up to 11. So they might not even need one. All I know is if they have one, then it's time for me to go on a permanent vacation out of country.
Or, people like to have a sense of purpose. Just saying.
World population management is the real issue, and since those of us not in the know will be the last in line for salvation, what is the real endgame when we get there?
Fiat is worthless, so ultimate wealth will be measured in tangible assets. Commodities come to mind, as well as PM's for currency.
Who's accumulating?
....the continuing shortage of ammo shows that there are a few folks with enough sense to be getting prepared for what I hope will never come. Ammo will make a very good new currency. I forget the name of the country, but Kent cigarettes became the unit of exchange for quite sometime...maybe someone here with a better memory than mine will recall that.
Let me reiterate B9K9's maxim, which states:
Regardless of time or place, the power-elite's primary imperative is constant, consistent interest bearing loan growth secured by real productive wealth as collateral.
What this means, is that it doesn't matter if the year is 1694 and there isn't an energy subsidy - credit growth is driven by the lucrative slave/sugar/rum trade centered around the Caribbean. Or the year is 1925, and there happens to be an energy subsidy - credit growth is driven by a new consumer class in the USA. Or it's the year 2110, and there is once again no longer a viable energy subsidy - credit growth is driven by production achieved via traditional feudal serfdom in China & India.
As you can see, the absolute key is to control the game at its point of power focus: base money creation & leveraged credit derivatives. All else follows. So given the parameters of our current situation, how does one game play the scenarios required to maintain control of this vital function?
Remember, overall economic recovery is immaterial to the equation. It doesn't matter if there is 25% unemployment and a 50% reduction in government. It's all about maintaining the ability to execute police control domestically & project military power internationally in order to support THEIR crucial $USD.
Understand what is occurring and shadow tail the power-elite. While you may only garner crumbs, they will still dwarf typical incomes.
I disagree about the importance of the USD. Nations rise and fall but moneyed elements behind the rises keep turning up like a bad penny. So it seems natural that they make the ride up and then down and find a new host.
Now clearly feudalism is going to make a comeback, but from here to there is the question. Big changes in society just don't happen with no chaos. To get us from here to their their must be disorder, so a different form of order can be put into place. This makes me think it's time for an empire change.
I must confess I'm stumped about how to ride the wave with them. If the USD is to remain around then it would tell me invest in the military complex since it's vital to keeping the oil sold in dollars. But then I'm inclined to think that real money would be made by riding the new empire on the way up, or sell the empire on the decline. I suppose that by going strong into the developing empires economy one could reap the rewards as they use it to leverage up and extract wealth.
Hasn't the power been cozying up to China? US factories popping up there and all. The elite of China will most assuredly need protection; since the elite are all about suppression it should be a pretty clear fit. China with all that "wealth" will need to secure energy, enter Haliburton, Xe, Exxon etc. (George Bush's crowd), followed by the banksters (Obama's crowd). The US will melt down; the rats have been leaving; and, I'll stay here to make sure they NEVER come back!
"If the USD is to remain around then it would tell me invest in the military complex since it's vital to keeping the oil sold in dollars."
For sure our military is vital for ensuring that oil(along with all other trade goods) can be traded relatively freely and without much interruption, particularly on the high seas, where the U.S. Navy enforces freedom navigation for all nations, worldwide...for free, to the benefit of all trading nations. Them is just the facts out there, in all those disputed straits and gulfs surrounde by various local hegemonic powers and tyrannies vying for power.
Your thought about our military being out there entirely to enforce that this trade be carried out in dollars is very much arguable, or at least it isn't just a plain, obvious fact of life on this planet.
I've heard this from more than several sources as a real possibility and I don't doubt it. Two months ago, for the first time ever, the USAF performed training missions for recon and air to ground fighting for an opponent to be fought on USA soil. As a recent veteran, and officer, I am not saying our boys are training to depopulate civilians. I'm saying they know what is going on, and are preparing for the worst too, and let it be known that they are preparing for the worst, so radical groups think twice about taking advantage of any civil break down.
Tribalism (I prefer neo-networking) may also be making a come back as you say -- making friends who share values and ammo size.
Oh I have no doubt that the military would be used to suppress riots or a popular uprising against the bankers and their puppets. And I have no doubt that the military would fire on civilians. Now I'm sure a bunch of people will get puffy about that. Well how about the Vet demonstrations in the Great Depression and the troops being used on them? How about the Civil War? Give the grunts a head full of propaganda and send them to suppress their countrymen. A huge reason why I hate large standing armies, more a threat to their own people then as a deterrent. And unnecessary mostly, seems the Swiss system has worked for a while and citizens are not to likely to start murdering each other on the whim of the central government.
Oh, yeah. The military will fire on civilians, and it doesn't have to be a serious situation. I was in the Air Force when this happened and I was stunned.
Kent State shootingshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVMGKOFIwY
May 4, bitches. Never forget.
Charlie Rangel intends to introduce a bill that will make 2 years of military service MANDATORY up to age 42. I guess that puts me in the bracket too - only, I left the USA and have dual citizenship.
He proposes that garbage every month or so it seems like. Ignore him, he's on his way out anyway.
flacon
The following pledge is taken by AmeriCorps members, who promise to uphold the duties of their position, and reads as follows:[16]
One argument for Rangel's motives is that he's looking to force the rich to be exposed to a draft, and that that way they'll think twice about drumming up BS wars. This is kind of a game a chicken, but, it's not necessarily all sinister. Who really knows what's going on in his head? It's probably no more than trying to fuck with the GOP (who will find a way, as they always seem to do, to make sure the wealthy stay out of combat; which makes Rangel's intent wash out).
But... I wouldn't be so quick to believe that you've escaped the possibility of war, especially if the country you "escaped to" contains resources that the US elites require (to stay in control).
If people think that the Afghans are tough to conquer, just wait until the US tries to subdue [US] Americans. Yes, it might not look like it now, but the Tea Party, massive unemployment, Super Patriots etc are all building up into something that's not going to just roll over and die.
Right the traditional red voters are militant and armed. So if you were an oligarch calling shots what would you do? Seems to me the answer is run someone who you own in 2012, someone who will appeal to the militant red voters. This man on a white horse could fuel that anger, and they would be more then willing to help suppress those dastardly blue voters and other unpatriotic elements of society.
Though it would be easier then you think the best the American public. Turn off the shipments of food and fuel to the major cities and they will turn into abattoirs that would make Sade blush. Siege is a nightmare, reading on what happening in St. Petersburg in WW2 shows that, and it would be quite easy to cut resources. Indeed it may happen anyway when the dollar gives way. A few weeks of hell and I daresay the majority would gleefully turn in their guns and freedom for a bowl of food and a glass of clean water. Rural populations would require more work, good thing most everyone is in the larger cities...We are not the Afgans, we are not used to living with nothing.
As to the draft, the rich never fight a war except as the general for the glory to be heaped on. The draft (slavery by the state) always falls on the common man.
Dupe post
It called the New World Order, like it or not. Most of us are not part of the plan....
sucks, huh?
You can only shake your head at times: the masses are playing along--not even playing. They're like marionettes. What's coming isn't going to be pretty.
59 is not young and speaking as a "man" i say...
if you are wearing a suit you are suspect
no callouses? prove your not a banker or i blow your shit away! RIGHT NOW!
What allows me to remain at home and not do violence is that i have prepared for this, as a man should, while all the while remaining centered and true to my core awareness that i am NOT the man, not the body. Had i never heard the force, the audible sound current i would be victim to my mind, emotions and ego.
The fact is most people dont have that perspective, the perspective of being eternally alive as the presence that animates the human form.
So whats holding the masses back from rebelling? The appearance of normality, the delusion from TV and the captivated non aware, nonimaginative go along get along with a dash of hope.
I spent time in the mountains of oregon in my youth growing pot for an older fellows retirement. I spent months alone except for his occasional resupply visits (learned to make biscuits over a campfire) then he returned to his cook job and i was alone again. I had been alone the bulk of my life so this did not disturb me. What did disturb me was the Lack of info for the mind, i caught myself looking for anything to read, anything to occupy the mind. i realized a higher state of conciousness that summer including a 5 second 360 view as i was a viewpoint , an elevated spot and saw everything at once. My first responsive thought at the awareness of it returned me fully to human conciousnes and its more limited range of ability.
So i think once the TV and computer are off..all hell breaks loose
Forgot...didnt have squat to smoke! All the time in the hills ,nada and that sucked! lol
There's never a shortage of ideologies and economic interests to fill the vacuum when the king is dethroned. The times have a little French flavor to it, so please, don't lose your head over it. Mandarin is a harder language to learn but the food is great. And honestly, everyone I've talked to agrees that the Sharia fashion sense isn't going anywhere in our lifetimes, so this is a no brainer folks.
Jon Nadler says gold is going down to $600.
Jon Nadler is an insane spokesperson for a company that is in the business of selling gold.
Does anyone here have a rationale for that??
.
Would that put silver back to $7 oz?
Never happen!
It might just do that.....for about a couple of weeks?months?
then prepare for blast off.
take it as the worlds final warning to get ready, Bens helicopter has just lifted off.
Yeah.... with a $700 premium - IF you can find a place that still sells gold/silver.
The only thing that explains Jon Nadler to me is that his opinions differ wildly from the people who buy from his corporate site. Most of the other commentators have either contrasting or opposing opinions.
Nadler stands out because he's the different one. And sometimes he's right, gold CAN become overpriced and go down. So from that point of view, he's right occasionally. And maybe that's all that matters.
But I stopped reading him quite some time ago because he was stinkin' up my computer.
interestingly enough he is most often the top commentary on kitco
and always bearish on gold, for the last several $100 increments
Either he's trying to get the customers to churn more on way up and down...or they're starting to think they need to hold more inventory.
So governments are going to devalue their currencies while simultaneously trying to sell debt at 1% rates to keep their economies afloat. Not going to happen. Any nation which becomes a serial currency manipulator is going to experience a boycott of their sovereign debt. They'd just be shooting themselves in the foot.
I think defaulting on sovereign debt will be the endgame.
I agree soveriegn default is the end game.
Just seems like there is too much evidence for systematic circular buying by various serreptitious means by all the fiat losers as we circle the toilet, all just trying to survive to the second flush for bragging rights. Seems that the outcome is still going to be the same.
I'm not even talking about pimco.
munger and the other billionaires say crisis averted. now suck it up and pump it up. lulz
Wow, TD. Thank you again for all you do.
Again: We are at the end of The Great Keynesian Experiment. Prepare accordingly.
Just been thinking. If you were Osama bin Laden, you could not have planned this more perfectly. Prick the macho American military into action, knowing that the softy US consumer would never tighten their belt just because some boys were abroad losing their lives in a futile search for vengeance (this, by the way, is W's biggest failure - if unable to persuade civilians to share the sacrifice, then no soldier should be sent to war). Then stand back as the state/banking apparatus stretches itself to oblivion, hoping it can maintain the illusion of fortitude.
I find it underappreciated in these pages that our military is clearly the only reason we and the dollar are still on the playing field. The Euro is strengthening, even as its member states implode, and they have NO military. Imagine what would become of the dollar if we had none - or even a lesser one. Foreigners buy our debt because we tell them to in exchange for protection (just like the rackets!). Now that our consumer is tapped, that's the only card we can still play. Osama's bid to preoccupy and drain our military is a bluff called.
That's Alt-History you are inventing there. OBL's plan was NOT to see infidels invade, much less occupy and convert democracy and market economics ANY part of the Umma: Au contraire, the original thing that set him stark freaking bonkers...this is the actual history now.... was infidels(our military) being stationed within their holy land over there, to protect Saudi Arabia from invasion by Iraq following Saddam's rolling into Koweit.
Ben wasn't happy enough with "The Bernanke Put". Nope. Even that wasn't enough to light a fire under the market and start a round of chain-letter ponzi "investing" at the casino. So today he upped it. Welcome to "The Bernanke Reverse Iron Butterfly Spread".
Heavy, man, heavy.
The 12 Simple Steps to Financial Meltdown:
1) Japan buys dollars with Yen to prevent Yen from strengthening any further.
2) Japanese exporters, who are flush with dollars that they haven’t been willing to exchange at recent lows (because they would have suffered big losses), convert some dollars into Yen by buying Yen (selling dollars to BOJ, basically)
3) BOJ stops buying Yen to test the market, and Yen strengthens because of exporter buying until the Yen reaches the “line in the sand,” where BOJ intervenes and again starts buying.
4) Cycle repeats several times until it becomes clear that BOJ is going to be forced to supply Yen permanently. This permanent supply would be at a floor price, which will create a known and very tight range for the Yen/Dollar trade.
5) All the while, BOJ is buying up US Treasuries, which they will need in a few steps…
6) At the same time, newly minted Yen are winding up in the hands of export companies (in exchange for their imported dollars), and thereby steadily and rapidly increasing the supply of Yen in the domestic Japanese economy (by way of the exporter’s domestic expenses like labor and leases).
7) And meanwhile, US Treasuries are being purchased, giving the Greenback support in the face of QE lite and real QE2.
8) As Yen supply within the Japanese economy spikes, prices rise and inflation sets in, even in the face of a now artificially stable Yen price in the “public” markets.
9) Inflation accelerates to hyperinflation, as hundreds of Trillions of Yen relentlessly bombard the domestic economy, until the BOJ is forced to stop supplying Yen. This will likely happen when Yen demand starts to cross the BOJ established price range anyway, and it will already be far, far too late to avoid the inevitable…
10) The Yen value will crash as everyone becomes a seller. The BOJ will have only one choice: to use their huge stockpile of US Treasuries they just purchased as a way of soaking up the vast excess of Yen that they have created, and they will start dumping them to get the dollars to buy back Yen and provide price support – something “unimaginable” today.
11) Forced liquidation of Treasuries by BOJ in conjunction with QE2 will create a dam-burst of Treasuries flooding the market. The price will plummet and interest rates will skyrocket. Every major Treasury holder from China to Pimco; to the states’ pension funds to every wallstreet bank, will see this Treasury crash and sell, Sell, SELL!!! Dollars will be everywhere.
12) Result: Yen collapse, Dollar Collapse, Bond Market Collapse, Massive Interest Rate Spike, and Hyperinflation.
Who junked Brian? That was a pretty decent 12 Step Program; though hardly therapeutic...
Regards
I agree, a rather well-thought-out scenario. How about it junkers, let's hear your take, what do YOU see happening? At this point Brian has you totally outclassed.
+1
A twist on Lira's hyperinflationary theory?
What are the BCE and the SNB doing at each of these steps? China and their currency? The various bond and CDO markets? Commodity prices and trade flows?
Ans. In all likelihood they are exacerbating the problem and accelerating the outcome.
Regards
This all makes the "nutty" Russian professor, who predicted in 2008 that the USA would break up into five parts, positively look like Nostradamus.
We could still pull out of this thing. Others elsewhere have pulled out of far worse than may occur. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and stock up on the three G's. And remember to share your food with your neighbors, you may have to eat them too.
"stock up on the three G's"
gold, guns and gum?
On top of all that greed, throw in a lot of really bad weather. Hungry people do not behave in normal ways.
lets not forget old wounds. Japan as the unenviable first recipient of 2 nukes may be looking to return that gift in its own way.
Or, as we are all drowning in debt together some will drown others as they crawl their way back up to sunlight
Also seems that Japan has its comeuppance due with China. Maybe China gets back some of that industrial equipment that Japan pilfered way back when? Looks like Japan is toast.
The bitterness and racism existing between the various asia-pacific nations predates the benevolant nuking incidents, and continues. Japan is not well loved over there. On the other hand the Japanese were saved a lot worse by the nukings they received, and the little nukings themselves were small affairs in the grand scheme of destruction inperial japan had visited on the region for more than a decade.
Speaking of possible nuclear war, did anybody catch this? I don't normally get interested in this sort of thing, but I was researching a stock and just happened to notice a cite to this article from Reuters (reputable?) at the bottom of the page. Hey maybe we don't have to worry about nukes with friends like these.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS166901+15-Sep-2010+PRN20100915?loomia...
Holy shit! The terrorists are now manning UFO's! No doubt they made them with box cutters. Those sly freedom-haters. I even bet they have tractor beams and Osama Bin Laden is armed with photon torpedoes! We need to increase the Pentagon's budget for chrissakes. Before it's too late!
Oh wait. Looks like they're working on it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0120383520100201
WTF??
I guess our government's famous paranoia about "national security" doesn't apply when Reuters reports to the world that our military defense has been compromised.
now we're talkin.
maybe crazy Ian Lungold wasn't so crazy after all?
time to meet the neighbors?
No worries. just some gypsy renegade aliens antque shopping.
LMFAO!
Hey why not. Just add a vibrator mechanism and these things can please an amazonian titan queen for centuries. That scores you mega points with them.
Oh thank God! Now that we know there are aliens someone get GS and JPM on this. We need to shatter their economy with exotic investment instruments post haste. And just when the world runs out of money for the ponzi scheme the aliens show up! Space Bucks for all :)
I hear Larry Summers is free. We can send him to Romulus to set up the derivative market.
The aliens have told me that they like to travel light--ergo, no Larry Summers on Romulus. Alternatively, they like to eat lean and he would be too greasy.
after reading this again, it's really difficult to take the rest of this bullshit seriously.
i'm going long rabbit holes.
are you sure you don't mean wormholes?
them too
I had a beer one night with a retired USAF air traffic controller stationed in White Sands, NM in the 1950s, who was certain he tracked radar contacts that were well beyond the performance capabilities of any aircraft at that time - or today. He didn't use terms like "UFO, etc." but it was pretty clear that what he observed was completely outside the realm of terrestrial aeronautics. Ever since that night, I've never slept quite as well....
Well, assume it to be true. They didn't destroy us. If they're shutting down nukes I'm ready to convert.
I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords.
Beam me outa here! There's nothing but demented life down here!
Ah, this is the old the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse. It'll cover why all those billions of dollars in weapons don't actually work! The aliens-ate-the-weapons excuse!
pretty silly if you think we could be the only life in the universe, the damn thing is too big for life to have not existed at some point since its formation.
The bigger leap is to say that "ET" exists now, and is visiting us. If it's true, then -- lol... we're kinda screwed.
the cometa report is interesting, a lot of the rest of the world isn't so 'skeptical' about "alien visitors" as U.S. Citizens are.
Reuters was bought by the Rothschilds in the 1800s
http://thomsonreuters.com/about/tr_trust_principles/trustee_directors/28...
Interesting (to me anyway) though.
What's taking shape is a dystopian post-capitalist post-apocalyptic world like the one predicted by the CyberPunk generation of writers.
A landscape where a few multinational mega-corporations-turned-cartel increasingly dominate global capital flow, political force and access to information. They feed internet fantasies and fluff entertainment like dope to the masses while maintaining strict control through cyber-surveillance. Social mobility becomes obsolete. A ruling class emerges. People work at nuclear power stations by day and go home to their internet fantasies by night. They buy into the reality matrix or else.