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NATO Running Out Of Ammunition In Libya "Oil Liberation" Campaign
Where does one even start with this one: US launches air campaign against oil rich country under pretext of humanitarian intervention (while ignoring comparable events in Syria and Iran). US realizes it does not actually use Libyan oil, government runs out of money, hits debt ceiling, leading to decision to pull out of Libya after it is uncovered that CIA operatives had been laying the groundwork for a government overthrow for months, and a scramble to avoid Iraq deja vu ensues. US hands over military campaign to ragtag NATO force led by France. NATO "air superiority" force bombs rebel units; Libyan rebels lose previously held positions and oil wells. Libyan government on verge of repelling US and NATO forces, leading to... NATO runs out of ammunition. There is no point to even comment on this increasingly more surreal chain of events.
From Defense News:
NATO is running short of precision bombs and other munitions in its Libyan operation against the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, The Washington Post reported April 15.
Citing unnamed senior NATO and U.S. officials, the newspaper said the shortage highlights the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action.
The shortage of European munitions, along with the limited number of aircraft available, has raised doubts among some officials about whether the United States can continue to avoid returning to the air campaign, the report said.
So far, the NATO commander has not requested their deployment, The Post noted.
But several U.S. military officials said they anticipated being called back into the fight, the paper said.
Currently, only six out of 28 nations are conducting air strikes, while France and Britain carry out half of them. The other half are conducted by Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Canada.
Bottom line: this whole "plan" has been a total disaster from the beginning. And good luck Obama trying to sell a repeat US incursion in what even the idiot electorate now sees through as nothing than another Bush-like attempt to extract oil and implement Halliburton as the chief executive authority. That particular record has already been played.
h/t Themos Mitsos
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So when Obama said that in no uncertain terms that Qadaffi had to be removed from power he was just reading what the teleprompter said and he didn't really mean it?
Enough of that teleprompter stuff. This is serious business. Does this mean my Priceline.com and Lululemon stock will continue to rise. Or not?
Yes. All of the money that was being spent on troops, fuel, and bombs will now be dumped straight into the stock market. Congratulations, you are about to have many fiats attributed to your name.
Perhaps the price of silver is curtailing the USA from turing plowshares into swords (bombs)? Can't make a precision bomb with SLV or stock certificates now can you? I am sure Bernanke and Dimon have thought of that and can use tongsten/lead instead of silver for the electronics...right? 100% lead solder anyone?
But you can't eat a precision bomb (although a few Libyans may disagree at this point).
+++ ROFLMAO!
well, we intend that they eat Mk 81s with the special package. - Ned
meanwhile they're eating, breathing, absorbing and otherwise ingesting depleted uranium. go long uranium! http://www.voltairenet.org/article169437.html
Of course, the military industrial complex could always resort to platinum for their circuitry. Why stop at Ag when you can achieve maximum conductivity with Pt?
Of course they don't want another Iraq. The purpose of the military expedition was to warn Ghadaffi... just like the first Iraq War was a warning for Saddam. The West wants Ghadaffi to give them cheap oil and to privatize their central bank.
It was a message... play by our rules or else.
Well said mad hatter. The reason the article couldn't make sense of the Libyan operation is because it left out the part about the rebels taking the time to open their own central bank and sell oil to the West. That tells you everything you need to know about our world today, who really runs it and how they do it.
This smells like a CIA/Mossad operation. Sorta like dead fish.
Why would Mossad want to overthrow Ghadaffi and install Al Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood in Libya? Do you think Mossad is behind Mubarak's overthrow too?
Sense there is no 'Not Junk' button I will simply say "I thus say Not Junk".
+1 "I thus say Not Junk"
I collect "junks" in my spare time. Please indulge me.
Do we have to press "2" for spanish?? Milestones
Libya all about oil, or central banking?
By Ellen Brown
Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank - this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:
I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.
Alex Newman wrote in the New American:
In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the "[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."
Newman quoted CNBC senior editor John Carney, who asked, "Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era."
Another anomaly involves the official justification for taking up arms against Libya. Supposedly it's about human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory. According to an article on the Fox News website on February 28:
As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record.
The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens - who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.
Whatever might be said of Gaddafi's personal crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving. A delegation of medical professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in an appeal to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that after becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few nations did people live in such comfort:
[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 US dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious.
They maintained that the international community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime. "Tell us," they said, "who would not like such a regime?"
Even if that is just propaganda, there is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to the desert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the US$33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya.
The GMMR provides 70% of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya's vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north. The Libyan government has done at least some things right.
Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is "all about oil", but that theory too is problematic. As noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2% of the world's oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market. And if it's all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?
Another provocative bit of data circulating on the Net is a 2007 "Democracy Now" interview of US General Wesley Clark (Ret). In it he says that about 10 days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. "I don't know!" was the response. "I guess they don't know what else to do!" Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that "[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar."
According to a Russian article titled "Bombing of Libya - Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar", Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.
During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.
And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:
One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned ... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.
Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tonnes of gold in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?
All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies. An article on the BIS website states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective "to preserve price stability".
They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don't interfere with this mandate. "Price stability" means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.
In a 2002 article in Asia Times Online titled "The BIS vs national banks" Henry Liu maintained:
BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests.
... FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies.
He added, "Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation." The "state theory of money" refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.
The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government's own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly owned or privately owned. Most new money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government's own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest-free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50%.
And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include "issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya" and "managing and issuing all state loans". Libya's wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes.
That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care, and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the Great Man-Made River project. Libyans are worried that North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led air strikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.
So is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both - and water as well. With energy, water, and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible.
Most countries don't have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy-independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation's own publicly owned bank. Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers, and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans.
If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and healthcare continue to be free.
Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org . In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://webofdebt.com and http://ellenbrown.com.
(Copyright Ellen Brown 2011)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html
Flagged as not junk.
Oh yeah Ellen Brown I remember her. She is the clueless moron who thinks printing money solves all the world's problems. I perceive anything she writes the same as if Lindsay Lohan spoke about the wonderful life of sobriety.
Bingo!
Like I said quite a while back, the Colonel pissed off the bankers so that means war. All the humanitarian & human rights propaganda is pure, unadulterated bullshit.
it is not about banking, it is about water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Manmade_River
a very rare commodity in that part of the World
Go back and look at the timeline of the news. One day before the UN approved the no fly zone, Ghadaffi said he would bypass the normal auction process for Libyan oil contracts and offer direct concessions to China. Boom. Bombs dropping within 24 hours. Al Jazeera had the story up briefly, but even they took it down. But google the news, the timeline remains intact even if the dots remain unconnected by the MSM.
Obummer-Teleprompter = Magic 8-Ball
When Obummer reads the teleprompter delivering the control message... think of it as the answer from a cracked Magic 8-Ball that is always wrong...
Remember:
Obummer-Feb. 23, 2009
Obummer-State of the Union- Jan. 25, 2011
The idiot simply reads whatever is on the screen...
So.......if corporate Uncle Tom Obama calls on the U.N. .........to suppress U.S. citizens militarily in the coming U.S. civil war....... the U.N. is toast. Excellent.
Blue hats stick out :D
Blue hats be candy, not "supposed" to carry weapons. -->Blue hats b targets. - Ned
It always has been. Just an excuse for ongoing luncheons and cocktail parties for wanker diplomats and hangers on.
no that crazy blonde that wanted to be a news ancher changed the script and he told san diego to F-off.....LOL!
This won't end well.
Qaddaffi might disagree with you. Putin, too. I wonder if Vladimir is watching his miniature giraffe walk on that treadmill and laughing his ass off.
Bonus points for the miniature giraffe reference, had me laughing.
"no pain...no pain" LMAO
West, I am talking about what happens when the rest of the world realizes the US and Nato forces are irrelevant.
I wouldn't fuck with Vlad. He does hold a black belt in Judo. That leg sweep is fucking brutal. Imagine the follow-up strikes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkbpiOStMvY
What? Oh, pishaw! This will end exactly as we sowed it.
This is going to be Epic.
I am Chumbawamba.
yeah it has to suck when the bomb you drop costs more than the target it destroys.
Yes, well, the US hasn't figured that out in 50 years. Or maybe it has, and is just defense contractor welfare.
Now you understand EROEI . . . when the oil well you drill down 18,000 feet only finds a few months of oil.
well put.
aren't these sort of corollaries of don rum's "are we killing them faster than we're making them?"
War is economic. You win a war by making it economically impossible for OPFOR to take the field.
This is how we beat the USSR: we arms-race spent them into oblivion. It appears that Al Qaeda watched and learned, because our response to their attack, an attack once called "remarkably efficient" by McCain, has us spending ourselves into oblivion. Efficient indeed.
spending ourselves to oblivion??? who does that benefit again??
SWRichmond: There are many ideas on why the USSR collapsed.
1. Chernobyl bankruped their economy.
2. People seeing that the system was corrupt and morally bankrupt.
3. Afghan war
4. Their peak in oil production in 1987 and inability to fund their allies with cheap resources and energy.
5. Military spending to counter the US
6. Perestroika - restructruing and openess implemented in the 1980's by the communist party.
it never really died. that was all a big show. the same people who control it, are there now, only their stripes have changed to make it look good. once they called them good communist and party officials, now they call them capitalist and oligarchs. what has changed? the poor white russian is still getting the short end of the stick as usual......and for comfort, they go to the state church, the russian orthodox church, which for so long has been in bed with whoever has been in power. so the left is a enemy, the right is a enemy and the church is the enemy too. so welcome to the new paradigm which is really the same old paradigm, but now thanks mainly to the internet and the free flow of ideas, we can see clearly faster and exchange ideas faster and for this it does provide a tiny shining light that could spark something good. just maybe........
Very good points above.
+1
Yes and No. The USSR died. Effectively, Russia lost its empire. That was Putin's point when he said something like, the fall of the USSR was the greatest regret of the 2oth century.
The USA bankrupt the USSR by convincing the Saudis and others to flood the oil markets starting in the late 1980s. This dramatically lowered the price of oil and took away the Soviet's capacity to keep up an arms race with the USA.
It also encouraged lots of ME producers to vastly over-produce and accelerate depletion curves - and to then lie about reserves. It also encourage wasteful driving habits and poor urban planning in the USA. But its not 'game over' for the West.
The USA now has the technology to harvest unconventional hydrocarbon resources - tar sands, bitumens, heavy oil - with what is basically military aerospace technology. Considering that the vast majority of the worlds hydrocarbons are locked up in unconventionals - in the USA and Canada - its just a matter of time before these resources are brought on line.
It will be AFTER the USA has made sure the oil fields of Africa, the ME, Indonesia and S America have been largely depleted.
You are absolutely correct. The Norwegians are now in the Tar Sands and claim an extraction rate of...wait for it...80%. Yes people 80%...better than for conventional oil. Put that on your calculator with 1.8 trillion barrels in Alberta's Tar Sands. Also: The amount of energy required for extraction is 20% of what is produced.
Yeah, right. 1.8 trillion. And in 1910, England said it had 800 years of coal reserves.
link please, 20% seems wrong.
The Russians seem to have adopted an isolationist standpoint on fossil fuel energy production. With the drought and wildfires last Summer, they will no doubt be curbing their grain exports as well.
I'm still in the due dillegence stage of Russian petroleum production. It's not as if I intend to invest in what is left of Yukos Oil, Inc. The Russian technology for ultra-deep extraction, which was attempted in the Gulf of Mexico with British Petroleum, has proven to be a less than controllable operation.
I would welcome anyone's input on deep-well extraction techniques, as it is an intriguing science.
And it's because of fuzzy headed thinking like this that things go bad. Read your Clauswitz, SWR.
I'll see your Karl von (putting war college attendees to sleep for centuries) and raise you Sun Tzu:
This is the Griffith translation, his PhD. thesis after he retired. Sam was a playa'
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu e.g.
- Ned
Maybe those war college attendees should have stayed awake and studied harder, eh? Anyway, Sun Tzu is good too, but I could never get past the feeling that I was reading one fortune cookie after another.
Indeed. Those $150k bombs taking out wedding cermonies of poverty stricken folks in Pakistan and Afghanistan are a real ROI
Well, thats what happens when you rely on bankrupt allies (financially and morally). I see the UK had to ground their Typhoons for lack of spare parts. Hmmm, Japan=JIT?
It would appear that a good tsunami can trump a good Typhoon. Perhaps they should rename their aircraft to Buffoons.
Remember when Mussolina couldn't even take Abyssinia (Ethiopia)? Deja vu.
Stripped the RAF budget to pay for the Royal Wedding....priorities please
And just how many MORE people have we killed?
Irrelevant, except for scoring purposes. It IS what the US does BEST. Freakin' admit it. If not, the US will continue to demonstrate.
I don't care how much blood we spill in Libya as long as it doesn't interfere with the HD coverage of the royal wedding.
Well, yes, there is that!
PS Loved your Buffoon line. LOL
no. the killing is not irrelevant. it has a lot to do with how much those left living love u.s.
Long munitions and smart bomb manufacturers?
Long dumb munitions. Short the hell out of Silver intensive smart bomb technology. I was at a coin show Saturday and two big Silver buyers came in and paid 20% over spot @ $43 an ounce. They both walked out with every silver item in the show 1/2 hour after the doors opened and they paid in no questions asked cash.
Jamie and Lloyd now doing weekend overtime for Blythe?
I had to be somewhere 40 miles away early this morning.
My anecdotal comment is that I saw a highway strewn with retail pain and incredibly light vehicular traffic, even for a Sunday morning, with tons of closed retail space (much of it very new), and empty gas station lots.
It was remarkable.
The only place I saw signs of life, and vigorous ones at that, was Costco (on the way back, after they opened).
I simply surmise is that food and absolute necessities are being purchased at a few, select places like Costco, and much of it in bulk, and it all comes at the expense of other retail stores (the more discretionary their product lines the worse for them) and restaurants.
People are literally running out of gasoline on the roads at a record clip, for God's sake.
Does any think that we are not close to the brink here?
I would have written and asked this in a much more technical and detailed way, but I am tired, and it the message and question is probably better stated and asked in basic form.
I thought it clear 5 years ago. I don't know anymore.
5 years ago?
EVERY store was jammed in a 50 mile radius of where I live. Discretionary spending was rampant.
The contrast between the jammed Costco parking lot today and the empty stores of other varieties, both big box and mall collection, was stark and striking. Even some other (weaker) food retailers were no where near as busy as Costco.
One anecdote such as this, accurately relayed, may not mean anything (maybe it's cold or hot outside, as Goldman Sachs would infer, in explaining away the consumer weakness), but a string of many, many anectdotes accurately observed and relayed, over a long period of time...well, I guess we get further away from anecdote and closer to patterns and entrenched trends, no?
Agreed.
But, "EVERY store was jammed....." is my point. I am one to embrace entropy and that was a sure tipoff.
These are important and useful anecdotes. Everyone doubts themselves when faced witht he 24/7 BS from CNBC and the government. A report of reality grounds one's perspective.
Too right. Ground recon is always preferred over video/map. I seek out the personal experiences on many sites as that is usually the only way to get "the big picture". Screw the MSM.
The target is illuminated. Weapons are free.
How far do you have to drive to have a backyard barbecue? Americans should relearn a little humility and simplicity. Everybody has made their lives so complicated. Just look at your friends and family. Check out how stressed they are. Then check out how much of it they bring on themselves. Perhaps $5 gas will be a blessing to bring DOWN the blood pressure of Americans.
Hooray, a brief blip of sanity.
I am Chumbawamba.
yes i can't wait. i really think this will be quite remarkable. in this town i reside, so many brand new light trucks, SUV's and high end german engineered cars. i know they were all bought with credit. they pay $500 to over thousands on loans each month, for these weapons now they have to pony (haha) up for the expensive ammunition
That looks good at first glance. Maybe at the first 1.5 glances.
But on glance 2 you see that China wants to catch up. They aren't going to back off consumption. Neither will India.
America's dominance was won by burning oil faster than anyone else could. Now, the answer is not to stop burning and let their nuclear forces catchup. It is to burn up all the oil so they can't catch up.
Believe me, when the war starts to kill off competing oil consumption, that's a war you want to win. Not lose. You win it by having more nuclear weapons. Lose it and the 5 billion who die will disproportion themselves into your population instead of theirs.
You don't know the Chinese people or culture, then.
They aren't credit slaves and won't be for a hundred years, if ever (Chinese cultural changes usually take thousands of years).
They pay cash. They are frugal. They are pragmatic.
Only a few who are tied to the politiboro or are annointed by same are conspicuous consumers.
Most people even on ZH probably have no idea that China is red hot right now in terms of inflation and tensions between even what they consider as their middle class (about 3500 to 5500 USD per annum) or lower throngs, and the miniscule % of their population (domestic, not ex-pat) that makes anything remotely approaching even eastern european wages.
On top of all this, the Chinese Government has subsidized gasoline and diesel prices extremely heavily for the last decade, now, and are only beginning to ease off on the subsidies. If this trend accelerates, which is most likely will, watch and see how fast demand can and will be destroyed.
'Voracious consumers at no matter what price' my ass.
They either burn oil or they do not catch up.
There is no third option. If they slow oil consumption, they slow GDP. It is THE ENGINE.
They're building so many nukes that oil will be of little importance. They only need oil now to finish up those nukes. Sitting next to Kazakhstan, world's largest and richest uranium country, they will not need super-long supply routes (like we do for oil) to get all of the energy they ever needed.
I for one look forward to a simpler time than what we have now. People getting up early, working the land, talking to their neighbors, cooking their own bread, raising their own food and animals, taking care of our own needs and not depending on a government to do it for us. I for one think this would be a huge improvement over the "I am entitled to everything" generation that basically pissed away the hard work of our forefathers.
I go to a large regional thrift store (based on donations) outlet, you buy everything by weight, there are 40 people (at least) there before the store opens every morning, and generally around 100 people at all times sifting through bins of shit.
good deals on tools if you find them first.
the parking lot is full all and every day.
when the doors open they run.
Well that narrows it down a bit.
St. Vincents de Paul
Goodwill
Salvation Army
Here in the greater DC area, retail is as strong as ever. Parking lots in and around DC are always jam-packed full of consumers. Even the stores that I would consider more marginal in nature such as Best Buy, Lululemon, Petsmart...on weekends it's often difficult to get a parking space, and even weeknights usually see a relatively brisk sales pace whenever I stop into Target or a grocery store. I don't really ever travel out into the 'burbs (i.e. more than 5 miles outside the city) so I can't speak to the resilience of those microeconomies. I doubt they are doing quite as well, but still holding up.
There are pretty obvious reasons why the DC area hasn't been as recession effected as other parts of the country. Nonetheless, it's pretty annoying when you need to navigate packed roads full of BMW's and Audis.
That's because DC is the modern day Roman Capital, full of blood parasites.
It's an entire city, including a larger surrounding area encompassing parts of Maryland & Virginia, that just sucks trillions in tax dollars to pay fat, lazy and incompetent government workers and contractors to waste money on frivolous projects and anti-productive time and money wasting endeavors.
Manhattan & D.C. are two of the most inefficient and incredibly parasitic areas ever known to the geography of the earth's crust or the annals of financial history.
I call it the "Stainless Steal Triangle" Manhattan, DC, Hollwywood.
In the past I would agree, but even actors and musicians are more exposed to the downturn in the real economy than the tax-sucking leeches in the DC area (inlduing contractor row in Virgina/Baltimore) or in Manhattan (TBTF).
I tend to agree with everything you have commented on about DC and Manhattan.
" I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Re Charter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)
We're there
"Nonetheless, it's pretty annoying when you need to navigate packed roads full of BMW's and Audis."
What?! No Strudel for you!
Hey Sunshine, you must live in Cali too? What we are witnessing is small business on its last breath...Very Sad and when the geniuses realize small business employs over 75% of the population it will be too late.
And what exactly does this have to do with US/NATO actions in Libya? :)
But seriously, here's one thing I have noticed. I drive the length of I-5 from Washington state to the Mexico border several times a year, and I am seeing a noticable increase in the number of people living at the rest stops. Most of them appear to be living out of non-roadworthy vehicles and subsisting on begging for change to use at the vending machines. The level of desperation is increasing. It's grim out there.
"And what exactly does this have to do with US/NATO actions in Libya? :)"
Maybe they saw lots of Libyans at Costco. I hear they just love those meatballs they have at Costco. =)
It doesn't have to do with Libya, guys, and I apologize for the thread drift.
Well, it may tangentially have to do with Libya, as now that I think about it a little bit more, $4+ gasoline signs got me thinking about the consumer and the closed down Ethan Allen furniture, Joseph A. Bank, Outback Steakhouse, A&P (Atlantic & Pacific) Grocer, and many, many other now For Sale/For Lease vacant buildings I saw.
Tahoe - I split my time between Cinci & Phoenix.
ah, but it does. events do not occur in a vacuum
the beast must be Fed, if not off the backs of the consumer spending, then other means will be necessary.
as the financial and energy resources continue to dwindle, expect increasing chaos, wars, rumors of wars, and miscellaneous adventures. the fiat must flow.
Soon it will be a dangerous proposition to stop at a garden-variety rest stop. It used to be that the worst thing you had to deal with was random homosexuals soliciting you for sex. Now those same homosexuals would just as soon kill you and take your shit.
A brilliant exit strategy!
"Sorry, we ran out of bullets."
What is this "exit strategy" thing of which you write?
we perfected it in vietnam.
Declare victory then leave.
BYOB...
bring your own bullets...
Libyan
war mongering
bytches...
Such confidence from such a little man http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-usa-budget-debt-idUSTRE73G0...
small not little.
Oil's well that ends well
funnie...
Geez what's going to happen if/when we have to fight a REAL enemy?? One that actually fights back??
This story screams "paper tiger" IMHO.
that's the question I asked lo those many years ago when we went to Iraq; gonna bleed all resources to zero for what? Cheney's oil? where is it, btw? those fuckers' audacity was beyond the pale. problem is, nobody in DC or the funny 5-sided building has Cheney's BALLS: in this case to call a spade a spade: "OK, we got conned, (and conned you), we fucked up....shut it down"
Fact : Iraq's oil extraction is way above the pre-war level, and increasing. Cheney's oil has arrived !
thanks for that...I feel way better now. PS: how much is going to USA? PPS: rumors say the middle-men (oil corps) got really good deals... say, what? $40/bbl? $50? Now please be so kind as to compute COST to USA per bbl. Hint: it's easy... take cummulative cost of war (including after-care for vets and adding a factor for pensions, etc.) and divide that by total bbls landing in USA. Whatya got $5000/bbl? So we pay 5000 so the slimbag fuckin' greased-pig oilmen can buy at 50 ($25?) and make a killing (pardon the pun)
My flag will fly full mast the day that man is dead ... even if only for a day. $1.5 trillion to get oil .. at $200 a bbl that's 7.5 billion barrels ... some return on investment ... they can't even do simple math if 'government run like a business' is the motto.
"Geez what's going to happen if/when we have to fight a REAL enemy?? One that actually fights back??"
Mushroom clouds for all.
Ya' mean like in Nowhereistan?
Some allies, huh Blano. Wonder how long they would have lasted against the Soviets.
Obama the Warrior with his Nobel sword destroys the evils of man kind. Now in other news----- US economy on the mend with inflation a slight chance. Jobs look better and housing is available for people to live in. Election year in progress. Happy Times replays on Channel 2 @ 9:00.
And gold and silver remain barbarous relics.
Who needs ammunition when they got long knives?
Libya Rebels (pt4) Execute, Behead, Mutilate Gaddafi Army who Surrender! Where is CNN now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkcMgPsB3Gs&feature=player_embedded&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fs.ytimg.com%2Fyt%2Fswfbin%2Fcps-vflw8HsJW.swf&has_verified=1&skipcontrinter=1
Leave them alone. They are "freedom fighters". They are fighting against "terrorists". Now, was that so hard?
Yep, the founding fathers of Lybian democracy.
hahaha!
You take spelling lessons from obama's twitter feed?
HAHAHA! Great...spelling lessons from the top calling moron. Hey troll, what was that top you called in silver again...$24?
"US launches air campaign against oil rich country under pretext of humanitarian intervention (while ignoring comparable events in Syria and Iran). . ."
Ahh, the more apropos examples would be Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Israel or ??? You know those wonderful dictatorships and one-party countries that love democracy and freedom because they host U.S. military bases.
\sarcasm off
I keep wondering when the bombs are going to start falling on Myanmar. Or the Kremlin.
They're bad, bad people, too.
I'm surprised Obama didn't order an attack against the Tea Party rally in Madison, WI yesterday.
No bullets....
All Barry has is blanks and he's saving them for his campaign.
Does the Tea Party have oil?
There are very good reasons why the US doesn't attack Myanmar, North Korea, these are hard, well armed fighters who can fight forever and can live on 200g of sticky rice per day. Just give them enough bullets and a cave to sleep in.
That, and the fact the Chinese military backs them up. I'm surprised the Pentagon learned something from Korea and Vietnam.
The US looked for easy victories in AF, IQ, Libya, and is losing badly in all three. Tripling down on economic, political and now military impotence.
Elvis has left the building!!
Folks may want to go back and review the post that "ilene" submitted a few days back concerning an article that Ellen Brown wrote about Libya and ME banking. It makes the case that these ME wars are being started as an excuse to remodel the banking over there to be congruent with the western central banking model as well as deposing any dictators that may fall out of line with the "no gold backing" dictate of the IMF with regard to sovereign currencies.
Seeing as how the rebels took time out to start a central bank at the outset of a war, it seemed to have some validity.
Roger that. Islamic banking laws would destroy the US banking system.
Fucking terrorists.
The banking stories worship at the altar of Business As Usual and are almost desperate in their attempt to distract from the devastation of oil depletion.
It's a lousy 1 million barrels a day and no one could make it up out of their alleged spare production capacity. Wake the fuck up. There IS no spare capacity. Europe went to war over a lousy 1 mbpd and dragged the US in.
What a joke..European welfare states have relied on the US to cover their collective arses since the end of WWII.
Maybe Qaddafi can invade Europe and take it over! They ain't got no bullets...
Who would want that pile of useless shitheads, and they ain't got no oil. HaHaHa.
Give it time. The Muslims are filling up Europe as we speak, just as the Mexicans are reclaiming their lost lands in the southwestern United States.
Muslims are filling up Europe because they are being encouraged too by the European nations who have set-up the largest welfare Ponzi scheme in history. Only the Muslims are having enough children to perpetuate the system. The locals (Europeans) have become to self-absorbed to have any children, its all about me, me, and me.....Yes, the Muslims will ultimately win the war due to the fact they still have a family unit in place.......(in case you are wondering I am not a muslim)
I saw my first burkha (spelling?) wearer on the subway last week. So, the cops can setup little tables and strip us of our constitutional rights but this broad can wear a ski mask in the subway? Hmmm. I'm guessing she was an ugly bitch so I didn't mind the mask too much. Her ass was the size of a manhole. Wait, that "manhole" comment didn't look right when I typed it. I think I will leave it.
Let's all walk around with ski masks and dark sunglasses and see how long it takes to attract law enforcement attention..
an ass like a drayhorse?
was flying out of Islamabad
after a few months in the high karakoram mountains..
there was a widow dressed in a black burka
top to bottom .with black sunglasses
when she walked thru passport control
they asked her to take off her sunglasses
as they stamped her passport with exit stamp..
haunted by this image 12 years later..
such strength in sadness...
a family unit = WMD - Weapons of Mass Depletion
Supply and demand: When the wellfare checks runs out so will the abundant supply of muslims!
Europe was always a motherfucker to hold when playing RISK.
The key was Ukraine.
:D
Look at it like this:
There are 2 people drinking in a bar. One of them, always pays the bills.
Who is the smartest guy and who is the idiot?
And as a conclusion: the one that always picks up the tab is now totally broke because he constantly picked up the tab. Who's the smartest guy?
A fool and his money are popular everywhere.
Brega under fire again.
Why don't we take just the oil fields and lease them back the country?
Weak... this blog has gone downhill. There is so much going on behind the scenes yet they can't see the forest for the trees:
Vast quantities of gold are absorbed into the Asian drug trade - an inestimable percentage of the 400 to 600 tons of the metal that pass through the Orient in a year, mainly through Hong Kong, and mainly through subsidiaries of the Hong-Shang [Bank]. The trade could not run without it and other precious, portable, untraceable substances-like diamonds.
p198
Hong Kong depends entirely on the London gold pool for its supplies.
The London gold pool is the same operation as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, controlled by the same London families whose drug-running activities go back 150 years.
There are two major South African gold producers, AngloAmerican and Consolidated Gold Fields; there is one major South African diamond producer De Beers, largely owned by Anglo-American; and five major London gold pool firms, who meet every day in the trading room of N.M. Rothschild at New Court, St. Swithin Street, London, to set the world gold "fixing." Examining these firms individually, we discover such a manifold of connections that it is meaningless to speak of the London and Hong Kong gold markets as anything but branch offices of the same operation
This is not a gold thread.