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G20: The Death Of Cooperation
Submitted by Thermidor
As I've mentioned in the past, the Pittsburgh's G20 at the end of 2008 filled me with real hope that global policy makers were willing and prepared to tackle the painful issues that lay at the root of the global crisis. I'm not talking about morally corrupt bankers or delinquent US home owners but rather the massive capital imbalances created by individual nations and their excess spending or saving. After all, if it weren't for the current account surplus countries and their cash, there wouldn't have been the cash to finance the consumption binge in the US, UK etc. Now its possible that even with aggressive policy steps, it might have been impossible for politicians to curb the squirrel-like savings habits of the German's or the gargantuan appetite of US consumers. However, it's absolutely certain that if policy makers shirk this responsibility in the face of domestic pressures, we are just heading towards the next crisis as clearly as night follows day.
That's why this weekend's G20 was so thoroughly depressing as it was clear that on issue after issue, there was NO meeting of minds and officials have just retreated to their various national corners. So the Germans rejected any US attempt to keep fiscal spending alive (PS the US is right) and seem to have won the debate so clearly in Europe that even France is planning a legal balanced budget rule. No one agreed on unified bank taxes, which offers up the risk of regulatory arbitrage as banks get pinned for various national spending programmes (PS looking for a $80-90bln tax in the US to pay for the extension of unemployment and $50bio for the states). Finally, they didn't even mention Basle III so god knows what the agenda is on that issue.
It appears that we have missed a once in a lifetime chance to address the real issues and as we stand here in the cold light of a post co-operative world, we should all be very afraid. What we have to look forward to is a Europe lead by Germany that like some dominatrix seems determined to impose impossible fiscal austerity on all its members. That will only lead to deflation and social unrest in its southern members as well as wannabes in the near east. It will also ensure that globally Europe becomes a global aggregate demand black hole. In this regard they will join the Asians who continue to pursue their mercantilist export policies, build more and more productive capacity, as they drag their feet on FX policy (China is so paranoid about FX that they even had a comment congratulating their recent step removed from the communiqué). This is a classic bridge to nowhere policy and just guarantees continued deflation in the traded goods sector. Finally, with all the good intent of its Pittsburgh G20 statement now in tatters, I expect the US to try and soldier on for a while as the one source of global demand. Unfortunately, this time with the bond vigilantes are already gathering and the politics of the Tea Baggers gaining momentum, the US is running out of options. Ultimately, as unemployment remains stubbornly high, deflation pressures become real and the economy slows, the outcome will almost certainly be increasing protectionism and isolationism. The rest of the world will only have itself to blame.
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and then hyperinflation, no matter what...probably precipitated by a 'blame the ragheads for $200 oil' as methodology for refilling and overflowing the glass - see Iran headlines...it's coming
+5
Agreed. The spin for G20 is out. Weak gold hands being chased out, S&P about to dive. QE2 approved within weeks, hyperinflation insues...?
Time will tell.
Anyone not 'getting physical' right now needs a wake up call (IMO)
another idiot touting hyper-inflation. Don't you get it? 1995-2007...that was your hyper-inflation. It is so last century.
Sorry, let me be clarify. I'm looking at it in the perspective of real gold /silver and food prices. That's where the real (hyper)INFLATION begins, meanwhile so many are focused on the DEFLATION of their house prices, AAPL & GOOG muddled stock portfolios, general derivatives super-bubble related trades... etc.
Exactly. effing nice.
did the US dollar fail sometime between 95 and 07 ? did i miss something ?
And how do you suggest we avoid hyperinflation? Have you not looked at the money supply lately? Oh I get it. Someone told you M3 was the money supply. So you assume a figure that does not include all the money we just printed and gave to the banks is the real money supply. Yeah. Wrong.
Hyper inflation is coming whether you remain in denial about it or not. Inflation is the increase in the money supply PERIOD. But you can pretend that it is unions demanding higher wages or oil prices as your dollar increasingly loses purchasing power.
You were warned. You can't say you were not warned.
Take a look at the linked spreadsheet:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=407&Topic2id=90
Look at how the tax amounts change between fiscal years. You may need to establish additional tabs to the spreadsheet to determine those yearly variances. Tell me where you expect the $100+ Billion will come from. Tell me how the best way to protect your wealth is to invest in expansion in the United States.
PS, Europe is right.
cooperation equals china builds shit and US prints the money. china gives shit to US. hard to imagine that relationship would ever get old?!?
The great patriots Lloyd and Hank certainly like the current setup.
Since I have the Monday morning grumpies, I read an article from Naturenews on the potential firestorm from the the BP oil spill. After a hurricane sweeps hundreds of millions gallons of toxic oil into New Orleans, the oil coats nearly all the trees, scrubs, and grass. Then the 110 degree heat kills and turns everything into tinder. Then lighting ignites the tinder and fumes in the sewer system and New Orleans burns to the ground in a firestorm. Mother nature is a bitch at times.
N.O. has been trying to die since 1733 when the French had it. Then they sold it to us. It has tried to drown itself at least 12 times. Maybe self-immolation will finally work.
George Bush does not like black people
But "Blackened" people, there's a new taste sensation!
and yet always fair
Your whole post reeks of extend and pretend, while you oppose reality? Your last paragraph suggests we fear from Europe's belt tightening? Those impossible austerity measures grew to the point of impossibility because of pumpers like you relentlessly feeding the beast for decades.
Impossible austerity, deflation, social unrest...sounds like exactly what is needed so people wake the f*&% up and quit living in the Matrix.
Amen.
+2
bingo
People don't seem to be too enthused about the future without excess govt. spending, but regardless as to whether they like it or not the day will come when the spigot has to be turned off.
Do what you will with the spigot, nothing but dust comes out when the Water tower is empty!
+77
There must be some horrid bank earnings coming up next month when these crooks start reporting. They are castrating gold today in the hopes people will sell and get into STOCKS so they can keep the melt up going. Problem is, people have awaken to the scams both on Wall St and in the White House.
This is just idiotic..."tackle"?? WTF are global leaders gonna do to TACKLE the fact that the earth, for the first time in history, has decided to yield up less net oil barrels per day than the year prior?
Now you sound like a peak oil loon. Haven't we gone over this enough times already?
Have you gone over it? Gotta a link? I'm new here.
Clown.
Your avatar suits you.
you're right of course. Oil production can grow forever!!!
Now go fuck yourself.
Or perhaps the apocalypse won't look so black. Rather, we'll be trapped inside an endless grey day of ambiguities, directionless policies, strong opinions with few actual decisions or solutions, and numerous little crises one after the next where everyone regardless of opinion or political party caves to the path of least resistance and prints just a little bit more money, just this one last time. Growth will hover near zero with an ongoing bloodletting of jobs and gradual slow deflation. Raw materials, food and staples will gradually inflate. Global imbalances won't rebalance. They can't without an economic shock. Fiscal and monetary policies are locked in, fully committed to supporting the current regime.
all we need is some way to ensure that losses are only taken by the middle class.
Somebody will have to step up and take those losses after the middle class is wiped out.
Uhh, that would be us - lowly serfs aka the below middle class.
well, that would be us, the ex middle class, after we're wiped out.
The Germans would probably also print and stimulate if it was not for that nagging little fact that they have to play by the rules of possessing a non reserve currency.
With this monetary and fiscal policy, US will have to play by the rules very soon, too.
I would vouch that the "reserve" currency we have could turn to toilet paper really fast should they continue down this path. I am a deflationist all the way at the moment, but the idiots running this place could blow us up overnight in my opinion.
All it takes is one fuck up.
The Germans would probably also print and stimulate if it was not for generational memory. The anathema is in their DNA.
When was the last time the Germans controlled the world's reserve currency? That's right: never.
When was the last time the US experienced hyperinflation? Effectively never.
We are headed for a World War in the coming decade. There is only a finite amount of resources and patience. We are finally going to witness the true colors of our once great nation and I pray that they are not those of the empire we all fear we might have become. The rest of the globe is beginning to piece together that our financial mecca that is Wall Street has been waging financial war for years now and has abetted in placing many nations in the precarious situation we are all in because of the turning of blind eyes to their practices.
More like the coming year. Have you seen the 2011 budget yet. Me neither.
Agreed, in the coming year. Maybe before the end of the summer. Once those unemployment checks stop there's gonna be big trouble. Once the welfare and SS checks stop, the whole shit blows up. It's the only out they have once people stop believing in this Ponzi economy.
Or we just slowly deflate politically just as we slowly deflate economically. Low to no growth with little failed rallies, ongoing reduction of the workforce, slow downsizing of the FIRE sector, and consumers slowly changing habits and tastes to less expansive.
On the global geopolitical front I still believe in my theory of MAFD: Mutually Assured Financial Destruction will keep the armies of the world at home, focused on keeping their own home peasants from revolting. At every turn governments will take the easy way out and print more, come up with excuses for one more round of QE and keep the ball in the air. War is too hard, too disruptive for elites who already have it too good. And in a grey day environment, the masses will be too indolent
I probably agree with you a whole lot more than not, Caviar. I'm sure that's exactly what TPTB want to happen, but doesn't that assume they can throw all the levers and turn all the nobs precisely, when needed, in order to make it so?
And if they get any of them too wrong, or if someone (Mother Gaia?) throws a sabo into their well-oiled machine, doesn't it all come crashing down in a lurch?
Seems very plausible that's for sure. But then again the US averages a war every score, so that comment inherently has a 50% chance of being true.
If that does happen, I fear we'll be on the short end of the stick as North America is pretty isolated. On the other hand, prediction us being 'on the short end of the stick' would be an assumption based on our present day, completely screwed up way of though and our current global standing in the giant puzzle of life (blame CD and his contributions for me trying to think outside the box on this). In a logical world, with logical thought, the US would be perfectly positioned in such a resource war as we're protected from virtually everything except Mexico. And wtf is Mexico going to do? We'd just absorb them and bottleneck entry points further South. We have friendlies to the North, and a vast amount of domestic natural resources just waiting to be plucked. So we'd be A-ok while the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere tears itself apart. Who knows lol, that scenario could have been in the works since day 1!
"And wtf is Mexico going to do? "
Send illegals and narco-barons to destabilise the american south? ;p
This is what happened last time, right? I mean it's either that or some sort of global debt jubilee... and I can't pretend to imagine how that would work (it wouldn't). What was our rationalization for nuking Japan? Didn't we ultimately save millions of lives because a prolonged land war would have been too bloody for both of us? I wonder if anyone feels that way about us.
I'm no history major, but I thought we nuked Japan in a purely cause & effect event resulting from their attack on Pearl Harbor.
Although, I was successfully indoctrinated by the liberal public education system here in the US. I welcome insight regarding this subject.
We did what we needed to do get into WWII. Japan was provoked. Some of it was inadvertent and happened over the course of 20 post WWI years. But much of the provocation was very much choreographed. Google "McCollum memo" and read up. There is even a pretty good case that we knew specifically of the PH attack days ahead of the attack, yet did nothing to prevent it. It was exactly what was needed to galvanize support for our entry into the war.
I recall hearing many times that we knew of an impending attack on PH. That sort of thing seems to be all too common in US conflicts, hmmmmm. Weren't we doing ok though after WWI? I can imagine us drooling to get into WWII, you're saying it was one of those, 'don't let a good crisis go to waste' jobs?
But ya, I'll check out that memo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RINqibpWOzQ
I'm of the view that the US nuked Japan because of concerns over Russia. The Russians had taken Manchuria and were pushing for a seaborne attack on the Japanese mainland (the largest movement of forces during the entire war was the movement of millions of Soviet troops across to Manchuria), which could have forced Japan to be "shared" like Germany was. By nuking, the US forced Japanese surrender more quickly and was also a clear show of strength to the Russians. According to the official history, Japan was willing to stop fighting, but not to "surrender". Since there is little pragmatic difference, I am firmly of the view it was a show of strength to show who would be top dog in the Pacific region.
Of course it was a show of strength, but more than that, Truman looked Stalin in the eye and demonstrated that he was not too squeamish to engage in mass slaughter to achieve his goals. Much of Stalin's strength derived from his reputation as lacking any human limits. Then the bombing of Nagasaki upped the ante, since it happened too soon after Hiroshima for Japanese military and political authorities to analyze the scope to this new, incomprehensible weapon. That was just the kind of ruthlessness that Stalin could understand.
Yes
Finally, someone mentions Jubilee! Yes, that is what is going to happen, either explicitly or implicitly, as all the unbacked paper currencies go up in flames.
The each man for himself/free for all was brewing during the last G20 meetings.
Now is the time.
Set up the soon to be called "the Great I Told You So".
Fake austerity, collapse, people begging for more stimulus and money printing, default on govt programs, print money.
This will happen. May well be the plan, yes.
But people begging or not begging, that will not make the printing valuable. In fact, it will expose that money as the fake it is.
Where I live, all the housepoor debtors are begging and praying for the housing bubble not to collapse. Begging for more, more credit for everyone so they can escape their own private debt traps...and dive deeper into the next one.
When people beg for helicopter bucks and get them, then those won't work either.
I think a lot of those housepoor are holding onto a meesly 401k thinking they need a great run in stocks too. I think the final straw are these retirement accounts. It's simply too much for people to open the statement up and see -20% and then realize it took them the better part of their working lives to earn that. It's the hope factor that the gambling public has.
I think the elite realize they need to get back the sense urgency to these various money printing schemes. They just can't afford a few thousand people showing up in front of federal reserve bank protesting. They need the panic back. The panic allows them to move quickly and do what they want.
[quote]
Everybody's bragging and drinking that wine.
I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines.
Come to daddy on an inside straight.
Well I got no chance of losing this time.
Well I got no chance of losing this time.
[/quote] -- Grateful Dead
Lemme know how that inside straight strategy works out for ya's...
If they stop cooperating they default.
It's not so much that they "have missed a once in a lifetime chance to address the real issues ", it's just that the real issues have become a lot more personal...
A depression is not only inevitable it is necessary. It will be painful and could lead to a cataclysmic body count unseen since the World Wars. So be it. Hopefully a saner world will emerge from the ashes but lets not hold our breath. No matter what happens it is clearly out of our hands so put on your life preserver and hope the water is neither too cold nor too warm and full of sharks. I just hope that a good number of the Powers that Be have their gonads fed to them while they watch the World they have so selfishly commandeered over the centuries sink to the bottom of the economic sea.
This is my hope, too.
Well, we're already IN a Depression - no need to hope for it. But my hope is that it comes on faster.
I know the horror that will bring, but it's coming ANYWAY. And the slower it comes the worse it gets. The narrower the way out.
My husband and I are not prepared. But I have to accept that we may never be, no matter how much we try to save and stock up. (We've been living our own private austerity program for about five years now.) And it's going to hit beloved family and friends, but it will be less devastating to them if they can see it clearly and stop believing the 'hope' & 'rising market' shit.
Let it come NOW. And bring on whatever awaits. There is another brighter side, and we can't get to it until this part is over.
I never knew before that hope and fear can be the same thing.
Sorry, TPTB don't want a collapse. They want a slow, creeping deflation with little to no growth which preserves their wealth at the expense of jobs, of middle class incomes and retirements.
I fully agree that they don't want collapse...who willingly chooses collapse? The person I was 10 years ago would have preferred to avoid it...but the person I am today is so disgusted with purported educated elites and their contempt for humanity that I say BRING IT ON! For all I know I will be the first guy to be shot by a stranger as I make a mad dash for the safety of anywhere else but where I am when the shit hits the fan...I accept that risk. Ultimately I am more afraid of what I might do in the name of survival than what anyone might do to me. But then again I long for the freedom of truly doing whatever it takes to defend myself and my family. Back to life. Back to reality! Our biggest problem is that we've gotten too used to people dying elsewhere to protect our way of life. And while I blame our fearful leaders, we all share responsibility. Which is why I say..BRING IT ON! I accept my responsiblity and no longer hold out any hope for the current ponzi fantasy to continue. If the future of North America is more Bollywood than Hollywood than let it be. At worst we'll have favelas and refugee camps and openly corrupt police and military who will at least be buyable for an understood fee. Enough with the thin veil of propriety... Let the battles take place in the streets for all to see. Wouldn't be surprised if the G20 was staged in downtown Toronto to give the Canadian security and law enforcement agencies some training at dispersing, and when that doesn't work, suppressing large crowds. Let's just drop this fantasy that in the West we live in shiny disease-free enclaves...
The financial collapse of 2008 is just the shot across humanity's bow.. Markets collapse when the pshychology behind them evaporates in reaction to collective desperation that has yet to be well-articulated. Think of the sudden drop we felt post-Lehman's as the world economy's gut feeling when contemplating the rise of China and India. More growth yes...but at what environmental cost? Oil prices were going through the roof but it wasn't until grain prices went up and that the price of a baguette went up 75 cents overnight that I felt something was off... and this was in the spring of 2008. Up to that point I had no clue as to what had been going on with subprime mortgages and what have you. I wouldn't be surprised if the rise of grain related foodstuff and the food riots around the World were the wake up call for the average citizen of advanced economies who until then had nothing more important to worry about than which pop tart was next to reveal her shaven haven getting out of a limo. And it's been downhill every since. So yes we are IN a depression and TPTB, as a last resort, want to maintain a slow, creeping deflation...but if they take on Iran and the deficits continue and the jobleness worsens... there will be hell to pay and they will be powerless to stop it with any sense of diginity or public respect intact. And then pestilence and war will take care of the rest. That or it will be the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Not betting on the latter.
"It will be painful and could lead to a cataclysmic body count unseen since the World Wars. So be it."
You and your family go first. Idiot.
The world has enough money and resources to sustain comfort and quality of life for a majority of people.
We do not need a war that is wasteful and destructive and accomplishes what exactly?
A clean swiped balance sheet that is only valid as a figment of our imaginations?
We determined to accept leverage as a way of life. We accepted perpetual growth as a neccessary economic tool to survive.
We can change all that and be more sensible and make corrections.
What purpose does it serve to allow a few individuals to control the majority of wealth and dictate to the masses? What purpose does a clean billion dollar balance sheet serves to the people vs. the individual who has 5 mega yachts, 4 mansions, 5 jets and so on?
Get real.
You and your family go first. Idiot
You know if that's the way it's men to be. Then so be it it. And then your family can be next.
I think you've missed my point. We don't need war. What we need are recessions. More of them. What we need is to stop bailing out fuckwads who drive our economies into the ground. What we need is for ethics and morality to become central to civic life. What we need is for people to put family and community before dispassioned self-interest. But the leadership of the free world has been so centered on growth at all costs that that consequences will be dire. There is no getting off this ship scott free. That is the point I am making. We need to adjust our way of life but given the monkey display in Washington known as Congress, I have a hard time believing that anything will be done in time to avoid triggering the coming Conflagration. Going to war with Iran? Keeping banks that are Too Big To Fail? The failure of the MMS?
You might have accepted perpetual growth as a necessary economic tool to survive but I certainly didn't. I was fed the idea and I bought it until the Financial Collapse of 2008. I have been obsessed with learning about finance and economics since and the more I learn about the past 30 years the more angry and depressed I get. Multiply that by 100s of millions of people in the advanced economies and the "free market" that has been sold to us like so many bottles of snake oil doesn't have a chance. We are approaching a French Revolution moment. Or perhaps in the U.S. a Civil Revolution fought along the messy lines of North/South/Left/Right?
I believe for the most part that we are on the same page. It's just that am well beyond thinking that "we" can "control" the outcome of human activity using governming models that are centuries old and that cannot keep up with the flow of (dis)information. Thanks to Google and social media we are atomizing society into so many digital bits.. You, me, everyone on ZH, we are living it right here on this blog. While it is emancipating it also has a dark side. It is a method of control.. There are no more gatekeepers so we are flooded with garbage left to our own devices to find out where we belong. I don't know how to better govern the world in the context of a vast network of computers that guarantees that people know more about the world at the same time that they have never been more daft about it. We have become a world that is drowing in trivia at the expense of the big picture. Any European who thought as you did in 1937 probably had a much better chance of finding themselves, along with their families, by the time Hitler made it to Paris.
Who were the idiots then?
Really sorry... cursor was over send as I was typing... working on deleting the dupes...
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Again my apologies.. Got a little hot under the collar there...
the politics of the Tea Baggers gaining momentum
they are not "tea baggers", that would be your tranny mess boyfriend in drag with his sack on your lips. take your globalist elitist bullshit somewhere else.
Spot-on, CW.
This piece was already a stinking pile of rancid slug sh*t before it sunk into the TeaBagger depths. That was literally just the dung beetle icing on the cake.
Actually, doc, although we have no 'teabaggers' in Australia, I've come to respect them just for the sheer fear & alarm they seem to inspire in the corrupt elite.
(Altho, 'elite' might be a big of a strong term for a writer who can't spell 'led'...)
Every time I see an American 'anti-incumbent' article, it references those same teabaggers in horror. Pretty cool, considering the mainstream party voters can't seem to get a hearing if they even do have anything to say.
Love, love the fear & loathing. You like it now, you'll learn to love it later.
That's a good point. Related, I love how Sarah Palin can get the entire White House propaganda ops into high-gear for upwards of 3-days with a single post on her Facebook page. Seriously. Regardless of what one thinks of "The Snowbilly" you have to admire that for its shear cost-and-time-effective brilliance.
And hey howdy - Australia, eh? I'm going to be visiting that fair part of the Globe for the first time this October. Very much looking forward to it.
dewd, i'll give u a pass cause ur from australia. the word "teabaggers" is a derogatory word. here is the definition:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagging
it is used by the idiot that wrote the above article to malign the "tea party movement" which got its name from a famous rebellion in boston in 1773;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
From Urban Dictionary
:
teabagging buy teabagging mugs, tshirts and magnets An adult act performed by consenting republican/conservatives on each other to express their fake outrage to imaginary tax increases (most of these idiots actually just got a tax break)During this act one republican/conservative nut job (pun intended) drops his pants in public and slowly lowers his scrotum into the eager mouth of another right wing nut lover.
Some basic Teabagging participation rules
1: Participants have to be very low income (preferably on welfare)
2: Participants have to be avid Fox News watchers (this makes certain the participants are brainwashed to the extent of being borderline retarded)
3: Participants have to be republican/conservative On 04/15/09 (Tax Day) broke ass republicans throughout the country gathered in public and performed mass teabagging on each other for hours while complaining about some imaginary tax increases
no. im not gonna let u get way with it. it is not a republican or conservative movement. it is about the constitution and protecting it.
u can start here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQLVlkGvz4o
seriously "Thermidor" what are speaking of...the US is right...right about what, mis-allocating taxpayers money to pump the economy that gets at best $0.70 of "activity" for every $1.00 it takes from our pocket, which btw will only DECREASE as per the law of diminishing returns...until what, we get $0.00 of "activity" for every stolen $1.00 but then don't worry...Gov't will just raise taxes...oh wait I forgot that $1.00 of taxes will have a NEGATIVE $3.00 effect on GDP...what exactly is the next step?
"...squirrel-like savings habits of the German's..." In other words, squirrels have a lot more common sense than humans. I agree, wholeheartedly.
G20: The Death Corporation.
curbyourchat you need to reread the program.....hyperinflation is loss of confidence (in this instance the trillions in fixed interest deposits and bond paper) - i can assure you it is coming, and a lot sooner than you think, velocity in money supply will spike from nowhere ....it will be 'let them eat each other in the streets' ie your deflationary bias - or go mad with the printing press....even the psychos in charge will take route number 2 and try and prop up the half-assed property bubble again to keep themselves free of the guillotine for a little longer....and agreed, it will manifest first in non-discretionary consumables thanks to a supply chain of about 2 days.....the coming oil spike will be a pertinent cover-up to throw at the useless eaters regarding where the blame lies (ie not with policymakers). Gold up and paper down, not Gold up and paper cash up at the same time.
Anyone who believes that the present course can be maintained indefinitely is a fool.
Is there such a culinary dish as "Chicken Thermidor"?
I think Thermidor is a shill from the Center of American Progress. This post is a rehash of Paul Krugram's entry in today's NYT.
"...and the politics of the Tea Baggers gaining momentum..."
Radical stuff like balancing a budget and having States and cities have more control, and Washington less control.
Having Washington siphoning and printing more and more of our money while we, The People, have to beg on bended knee to Them to get some back to pay our bills.
Serfdom isn't it?
Who doesn't like tea?
instant K, love that liz pic..one very hot lady..hope you keep it around.
In 332 Constantine I established serfdom legally by requiring tenant farmers to pay labour services to their lords. As serfs, they could not marry, change occupations, or move without the permission of their lords, to whom they were required to give a major portion of their harvest.
Anyone else notice a large share of their harvest being sent off to tax collectors?
Besides the labour arbitrage and deflation importation schemes of the past 20 years, protectionism and isolationism by the US is doubtful. It will only hurtit's offshore manufacturing facilities wall street is so highly invested in.
Stimulus is debt deleveraging. It's intention is to pay bad debts down at tax payers expense. NOT your debts but those created through synthetic CDS's. Impossible to work since it represents 25x world GDP and austerity touting nations know that. They are regarded dead beats in the eyes of the US policy makers. US tax payers should not embrace the EU plans for austerity because this is a global currency crisis that must be absorbed by all nations and not the US alone.
Whether you agree or not, the US taxpayer has stepped up with the bail out of AIG which satisfied foreign counterparts. I would like to see the EU do the same.
Perhaps you could point out the toxic shit manufactured by the EU, triple A rated by the agencies, and then sold to US financial institutions? No? Wise up, the rest of the world has had it with the US. They want to see you eat your own shit.
The stupidity in these posts are anoying.
To all Teabaggers:
I support all of you, provided that you were all hell vent angry when the banks were bailed out. (Rick Santilli did not get that riled up)
I support you, provided that, you were adamently oposed to every bailout from Chrysler in 79 to present times.
I support you, provided that you oppose all government subsidies to all industries.
Thank you
Oh, and one last thing.
I support you, provided that you realize that the top 1/10%(0.1%) has already been bailed out and will be unaffected by massive deflation.
This is something, which, by the way, not one poster, not even to my knowledge, Tyler, has pointed out. A deflation is more likely simply because it now will not hurt the ultra rich that were holding the bonds on the corporations that should have defaulted in 08-09.
__
think
Teabaggers are the perfect archetype of people who got tossed out of the bowl and resent it or people who still have it hard to see in a black guy in the WH.
People who use the term 'teabaggers' are the perfect archetype of people who like to demonize the opposition without addressing more nuanced arguments.
There's a black guy in the white house?
No, Biden is rarely there...
There is no opposition here. Id est I dont address teabaggers as an opposition (because I dont oppose them) but for what they are.
Nuanced? Teabaggers are not nuanced.
And some desesperately lack humour.
I reminded one that original tea party members did their trick under the disguise of Indians (never draw the blame on yourself when doing dodgy stuff) and wondered when teabaggers would do their tea bagging stuff dressed as Muslim terrorists.
Was a good joke and also a nice question.
You're just lazy, be careful that it doesn't retard your faculties. When you ascribe the qualities notionally attributed to neocons to anyone who declines to participate in your drum circle, you lose credibility.
[quote]"What I can't figure out is why some people are so threatened or angry
at the Tea Party movement. What threatens them?"[/quote]
Perhaps what threatens the "Progressive" world view of those others is the
Tea Party principles: Small government,
fiscal responsibility, following the Constitution, and education about rights.
After all, none of these principles actually support the "Progressive" notions
of an all-powerful US Govt. dictating everything EVERY Citizen should or should
not be doing while they're alive in the USA.
There are no valid (or perhaps honest is better) counter principles to be had
for the typical "Progressive" (Socialist Decepticrat?).
Can you imagine arguing in favor of an "Irresponsible Fiscal Policy?"
How about "Ignoring the US Constitution?" How about "Less Rights Education
for our Children?" Let's see the hands in favor of a LARGER Federal Govt...
If they were to be completely and Intellectually Honest about what they
("Progressives") are supporting, everyone would see the "Emperor has no clothes."
So they have to grasp at straw men, such as "Racism", "Idiocy", "Hatred", etc.
to hide their own lack of good counter arguments.
wish there was a counter junk button. i want to +1 your comment.
an idiotic comment in a long line of idiotic comments. Christ i'm from new zealand and i seem to know more about the US constitution and founding of that country than you do.
sucks to be you not being in the top .1%. What is your solution by denigrating lower and middle class voters that are angry at our ass-hat politicians? I have not heard a constructive point yet.
BTW: Rick started the Tea Party movement with his rant
The stupidity in these posts are anoying.
Ironic, that.
+1
To my knowledge, the original bank bailout in 07-08 (that both McCain and Obama were in favor of during the campaigns, but Barr and probably Ron Paul were against) was one of the events that catalyzed the Tea Party movement, and I believe it was mostly independents and libertarians that started the meetups. That the movement seems to have been co-opted by some opportunistic Republicans is a shame, albeit unsurprising.
I think that is right. The first I saw the term "tea party" used (the current iteration fo the term anyway) was in support of a Ron Paul "money bomb" during the primary season. I do believe that the "roots" of the Tea Party movement were Noble. But of course TPTB had to reign in the movement in order to control it. I do think there is some version of a battle going on inside the party... and I suppose at the end of the day the Tea Party could have some small impact on the Republican Party... but I believe the movement (sadly) is already lost. The image I can't get out of my head... I think the Tea Party is like the biker in the Tour de France who breaks from the peloton... slowly but surely the peloton reels him back.
The money bomb? You mean that stuff started by Randy Gray?
What a reference.
I've stated in the past that once this turning is over, there should be a reckoning with those who would brazenly try to coopt the Gadsden. National defense and bank regulation issues are a fairly reliable tell as to who the posers and provocateurs are.
Dear Muir,
How many now teaparty people or what percent of the US public really understood what was really happening when in the fall of 2008 we were told, " we don't want to socialize the banks" -- Lehman was refused a 6 Billion dollar bridge loan, and (stalled) bank holding status, yet two days after Lehman failing AIG was given an 85 billion dollar "loan" to send money out the back door in the billions to Goldman and other--and Morgan and Goldman are rushed into bank holding status...Lehman is GIVEN to Barclays, yet the bankrupt Merrill is forced on Bank of America for 0.67BAC share per Merrill share....and certain people spend THREE WEEKS lobbying for TARP without a single mention of using this money to keep certain entities solvent...the list of crimes go on and on. And i know there are many people who still argue that the extraction of 23 trillion dollars of guarantees by the FED is what we have to do--I know that many people are beginning to realize that this aint so...but it isn't just suddenly that there is broad understanding. When Tyler started this website in Jan of 2008, the counterparty list for AIG hadn't even been released, and when anyone would suggest that the bailout of AIG might have been backdoor payments to Goldman, they were labeled conspiracy theorists...you see, now what is common knowledge for our public and the people you mention, the teaparty folks, but then, people were just at the mercy of the lies that were being fed by the makers of the mess who then insisted that taxpayer money be given to save the system.
Hmmm.... damn good points.
You're right.
What I take for common knowledge is not.
Yeap, you are correct, maybe information is the anwer.
Since I don't personally know any "teabaggers", I don't have any fucking idea to whom you address your snide comments. Perhaps I might also suggest that the best way to open a dialog with anyone does not begin with a perjorative term, repeatedly applied, so if you mean to refer to some actual group you should probably change your terminology if you truly want to communicate with them.
But that's not what you want, is it?
"I support you, provided that you realize that the top 1/10%(0.1%) has already been bailed out and will be unaffected by massive deflation.
This is something, which, by the way, not one poster, not even to my knowledge, Tyler, has pointed out. A deflation is more likely simply because it now will not hurt the ultra rich that were holding the bonds on the corporations that should have defaulted in 08-09."
__
Seems damn clear to me.
__
I only have one question, why did you feel the compulsion to reply to something that was not even addressed to you?
I was trying to be helpful by pointing out your poor interpersonal skills and suggesting that you might be able to improve them, whomever it is you are trying to communicate with. As I sad, also quite clearly, regardless of whom it is you are trying to communicate with, starting out your communication by casting a pejorative at your intended contact will probably not achieve a positive outcome. I see a lot of that among young people who are still full of themselves and haven't had the benefit of good parents teaching them manners.
"I was trying to be helpful by pointing out your poor interpersonal skills "
No, you were trying to be an asshole.
And, I may add, succeding quite well.
Yeah, that's what I got too. "PS the US is right" and "we should all be very afraid".
Ya know, a lot of us have been very afraid seeing gov'ts running pell mell in the wrong direction. It's gonna hurt when we start to get our economies healthy again but it'll hurt no matter what so why not start the healing process sooner?
p.s. regarding your "Tea Baggers" remark, I wonder do you also call Black skinned people "niggers" and Muslim worshippers "goatf*ckers"? Just asking.
The teabaggers do.
Personally, I try to stick to US values, you know, the behave like a US citizen do in order to not confuse any US interlocutor.
Therefore in a discussion with a US citizen, I can easily switch to negro, nigger, sand nigger, cockroach etc... A bit of using US citizen vernacular, you see.
The teabaggers do.
Really? You don't personally know any, do you.
Of course he does. Tea Party patriots, not so much. Projection ain't just a river in Egypt.
Okay, so you don't know any Americans, either?
I can't fault Thermidor for having hope in the G20, but given the current luxury of hindsight, let's not pretend that it was ever anything more than a mob of drunks juggling monkey wrenches in a clock tower.
Exactly. Anything of any importance was decided weeks if not months ago in the absence of any of these clown attending. Geopolitical affair of this magnitude are not advertised, scripts are not leaked and locations are certainly not exposed. Hell for all we know, macro economical and political affairs are probably more efficiently communicated through homing pigeons.
Stage the location, enter the the actors, throw a few stooge protestors along with a self igniting police car and you have a G20 for the worlds amusement/distraction.
Wrong analysis once more.
It has nothing to do with different fiscal approaches with respect to solving the economic crisis.
It has nothing to do with a declining U.S. muscle in the international arena.
Sadly, this failure to reach consensus in this G20 congregation is motivated by the vilest of all reasons: racism.
Frau Merkel would rather eat pig shit than follow orders from a non aryan. Imagine the insult now, herself (in her twisted little mind) the leader of the master race following directions from Obama!
Here is a suggestion to Mr. Obama's advisors who surely are readers of ZH. Next time you deal with die fuhrerin, you'd better damn use reverse psycology.
Ignorant much?! How about getting through your thick cranium that Germans have long memories - one could say that Weimar is now a "race memory" for them. They also remember the issues that re-unification brought.
Dumb post to an even dumber article. Seriously racism is your excuse? How about doing the same dumb thing over and over is still dumb. And what about the G20, when the F did anything right in this world get accomplished when a bunch of bloated diplomats and politicians got together to "fix" anything? We have a postmodern form of paganism that we can just pass a law or write a rule to fix things. I am so glad the Keynesian supernova about to erupt will finally put an end to statist thinking around the world.
Next item on the Agenda: Repealing the law of Gravity!
Wyndtunnel @ 439619--I admire your courage to speak your mind and the passion that went with it. You tapped into something most have forgotten--we are really all in this together whether we like it or not.
Were it to come to that , I would gladly want you in the same foxhole that I had to defend. Regards, Milestones
The sovereign debt crisis has been contained to the G20.
If not following the US government over a fiscal cliff is the death of cooperation then good fucking riddance to cooperation.