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That Giant Sucking Sound in California
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
There never was that “giant sucking sound” that Ross Perot had warned about during his quixotic presidential campaign in 1992—the sound that manufacturing jobs would make as they headed south to Mexico if NAFTA were ratified. Turns out, he was wrong. The jobs went south silently, and not in one fell swoop either, but gradually. However, yesterday in San Francisco, there was a giant sucking sound. It wasn’t from jobs going south, but from money going east. Lots of it. And in one fell swoop. President Obama was in town, fundraising.
His first stop in San Francisco—after a breakfast fundraiser in Southern California—was the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental on Nob Hill. $38,500 a person. With 70 people attending, the take was $2.7 million. Then they drove to a fundraiser at a private home in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, the most spectacularly expensive area in San Francisco, and perhaps in the world, where the Pelosis live. No reporters allowed. Also $38,500 a person, 70 people, $2.7 million. A cool $5.4 million between the two. It’s all very democratic. The elite got to buy access to the President and got to bend his ear. Anyone can do it. It just takes some money and knowing the right people.
Then in the evening, finally, there was a fundraiser for the hoi polloi at the Nob Hill Masonic Center. 2,500 people paid $100 or more for their tickets. And they got what they expected: after hobnobbing all day with some of the richest people in California, Obama remembered ... the middle class. During his 30-minute speech, he promised to do what he could to improve their lot—having suddenly become a populist.
"And I don't want this nation to be known just for buying and consuming stuff," but for manufacturing, he said. Indeed. Since 2000, real wages have declined, and the White House touts this horrid statistic in a recent paper that outlines how to make America competitive with low-wage countries like China. And one of the principal strategies is lowering wages. Read.... When the White House Touts Falling Wages.
But unlike the intimate groups of the prior two fund raisers, these attendees got no access. Their hundred bucks just gave them an opportunity to see him on stage in the distance, and later, some of them got to shake his hand. That’s all the hoi polloi got. Nevertheless, they gave him rousing applause. But when a couple of people did speak up against him and made their way down the aisle, they were promptly removed—not arrested and not shot, just thrown out. No dissent allowed.
Outside, streets were blocked, and traffic was a snarl. Protesters of all stripes stood around and yelled, wanting to be heard and seen, from Tea Party activists to frustrated leftists and deceived medical marijuana devotees, who'd massively voted for Obama in 2008 only to get their hide skinned by the subsequent federal crackdowns on dispensaries, growers, and other elements of California’s most vibrant industry—elements that are largely legal under California law and illegal under federal law. But who are these people going to vote for? Rick Santorum? So the crackdowns will continue.
Obama doesn't come to California to campaign. Doesn't need to. He has California in his pocket. He comes to raise money. But even here, his job approval rating has plummeted from 65% in March 2009, when green shoots were still everywhere. Well, we couldn’t see them, but they had to be somewhere, invisible ones maybe, because California was going bankrupt and losing jobs faster than anyone could count—and it continued to lose jobs until August 2011 (yep, no typo, for that ongoing debacle, read.... The Shriveling Middle Class in California). So the bloom has come off the rose, and in a December field poll, his job approval rating in California was down to 48% (though that's still light years ahead of.... The Most Disparaged Profession).
But California is unique. Take high-speed rail. The most profitable route in the world is the Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen with 150 million passengers per year. Even Amtrak, the perennial money loser, has a very profitable route: the Acela Express between New York City and Washington DC. In theory, California’s high-speed rail project could fall into that category. “In theory,” because in reality, it has turned into a hair-raising and very expensive scandal. Read.... Bait And Switch: High-Cost Rail to Nowhere.
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Thanks GMad.
Damn!!!...I guess I better start another retirement account or have my buddies save me some seeds ;-)
What does sensi go for out there these days anyways?
I take it it has been a while since you scored some good herb, nmewn? Sensi? Reallly?
Next time you do decide to get high, ask your dealer for some "BBCheese" or "TrainWreck" or "Kush". At least he won't look at you wierd?
lol...would I be considered a narc if I said the word weed?
BBCheese is considered "in" now...ROTFLMAO!!!
Mkay, as long as I don't have a "trainwreck" it's all good...whatever...kush is kinda cool, I'll give ya that.
Yeah, it's been awhile, life and responsibilities intervene...but a word to the wise...don't fuck with the old guys ;-)
I'm there with you nmewn, we called it Dogleg because none of us could roll a decent joint.
Neither could I...always had to use two hands and a table/tray. They came out reasonable but I also had to stick two papers together to do it which gave it more harshness than it needed.
A friend of mine converted an army surplus gas mask which was pretty cool to use...lol.
Like I said, I quit when the benefits were outweighed by the risks involved (property seizure, drug tests etc.) It's probably like that for a lot of people I guess.
It doesn't mean I don't plan on taking up with my old friend again when I retire ;-)
I have no response to that!
Here's a throwback....Arjan's Haze #2
There's a new one on me.
Closest I got to what appears to be in this family tree is Thai stick and Columbian Gold back in the day. Mexican was considered crap back then.
These younger guys have come a long way ;-)
Regards!
in 2008 I wrote in Ron Paul, I live in Cali, not far from the liberal nest, but I'm not one of them, in the minority here, but living in an environmental paradise, too bad the liberals have given this state away!
oh yes, I remember now, in 1994, I e-mailed the "CON"gress, with the new Internet, invented by Al Gore, ha ha, against NAFTA, I was awakened by then.
In 2008 I too wrote in RP in a small town in VT (approx 250 people) - when the vote was published by the state, there were NO votes for Ron Paul in my town. Now that's what the kids call "whack'.
Good god, it looks like we have a choice between the worse candidate. Our republic is screwed.
he keeps suckering the naive idiots who dultue themselves and refuse to study history.
http://covert.mypressonline.com
ATTENTION VOTERS:
After you vote in Nov. go back in and tell them you voted for Romney when all along you wanted to vote for Ron Paul. Just tell them to change it to RP. When the election officials look into it, they will see that Diebold had in fact registered their vote incorrectly and change it to RP (maybe). Hey.....at least it is a shot....no?
American people are to stupid and do not have a choice. Fools and slaves do not have choices!
If necessary, the Ruling Zionist Mafia will institute in the USA one Party System (like it was/is in the former Soviet Union or in China).
+1 ljag...
Diebold does the voting... Not the Amerikan public...
Hence "Spineless" Hairy Reid wins Nevada in 2010 and RP loses in New Hampshire... The Diebold precincts where 80% of the primary voters were counted, any way...
Funny you should mention Nevada. I've lived here quite awhile. Was here for the 1998 election, where Reid squeaked out a "victory" over Ensign by 428 votes. Not a peep from the national press, not a peep from the national GOP, not a peep from the local "libertarian" Review-Journal. Then in 2010, something like 7 polls, taken *the day before the election*, showed Angle to be comfortably ahead by anywhere from 4%-7%.
The next day, Reid wins handily. A _miraculous_ one-day turnaround that nobody wanted to talk about. Again, not a peep from anybody - most certainly not the RJ or the state/national GOP.
Stalin had it right: he who handles the numbers runs the show. One rather suspects the BLS watched closely, and learened.
It's as if Obama was the Demopublican candidate for the last 100 years. Obama's message to the plebs:- "I want America to be a manufacturing nation"! Didn't he say that 1n 1971?
http://thoseshirts.com/images/square-large-wbc.jpg
Yup. Groundhog Day.
ha ha, groundhog day, oh boy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA
Don't drive angry.
My God, what a sick situation. The end days of a Nation. Degenerate, ignorant; with the forces of corporate Fascism completely in control.
So sad and so true. My kids went to see Ron Paul thursday night. It makes me so sad to see the enthusiasm in their eyes knowing that their longing for liberty will be denied. It's been a bit of a running battle at our house for months now; my wife, son's, and daughter in law are all going to write RP in. Up until recently I've argued that to do so is just throwing away your vote. I've insisted that it would be better to hold your nose and vote romney. Then tues/wed? romney ran an editorial in the WSJ proclaiming that on his first day as president he will label China a currency manipulator....No seriously, CHINA a currency manipulator. That did it for me. I'm writing in RP too.
The man will not be president. obama is already baked in. It has been signed, sealed, and will be delivered.
Prepare accordingly.
If Ron Paul does not win, it only means that we who have been awakend, have not done enough to awaken those stil slumbering.
It ain't over till the fat lady sings in November. There is stil time.
When you vote your conscience, your vote is NEVER wasted. Welcome aboard the RP Pain Train. Even if he does lose, he has won. He has changed the conversation, not with new ideas, but with old ideas that we know work. Despite efforts to stifle them, good ideas, once given a spokesman, will eventually spread like wildfire.
My son and all his friends are Ron Paul supporters. It saddens me to tell them their enthusiasm is for naught, the fascists have taken control while their friends are watching the Kardashians
i will waste my vote on ron paul...i will not settle for more of the same...my son, although not old enough to vote {16} is doing his best to raise awareness in school....please if you cant vote for ron paul dont vote....every person that held their nose and voted for obama was translated by the tptb to be love for him ....so please dont waste your vote on romney, waste it on ron paul and let the chips fall were they may...the people will know if they have been screwed and i am sure there will be all types of unpredicted displays of resentment...
give me liberty {ron paul} or give me death....
ISEEIT and azzhatter
Your kids can do something about it, tell them to Stop Paying Taxes
Ron Paul is a false God of a false institution... do not have anything to do with it, least of all fund it through taxation.
Don't feed the suckers
Take cold comfort SAT, we are all "passengers on the Titanic" now ... as the 'unsinkable' Titanic might of the Industrial Revolution encounters multiple obstacles, e.g. the impossibilty of exponential growth ... it's a wonder that a whole clutch of Ponzi schemes (from the major banks, to petty Amway, or Avon) have not gone arse-up decades ago.
And still the band plays on, with neither the passengers, nor crew - including those on the 'bridge' - having a clue what to do, except for seeking distractions, such as global warfare.
If I had my druthers, then I would export myself to some remaining remote tribe and absorb the ways and means by which such people had managed to survive in harmony (more than just relative) for hundreds, or thousands of years; whilst civilizations came and went ... but even if there are remaining remote tribes capable of social self-sufficiency; I would not insert myself ... as anthropologists and missionaries during the 19-20th Centuries. I would be polution, by suggesting 'better ways' to do this or that, e.g. showing that a clove hitch is better than some traditonal knot.
It is said that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can create storms in far-flung places; but that is bull-shit.
To the extent that human activity influences weather/climate, it is the wholesale Industrial/Agricultural/Social Destruction of the Amazon and many other regions of the world which have led us all to "The Eve Of Destruction".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExH7h9Lk5HY&feature=related
Sorry that my post is a bit convoluted, but who can make simple sense of a world beset with compound lies, e.g. 911 and warmongering rhetoric agaist Syria and Iran (Libya is a done deal and is now in chaos, as planned years ago.
DO NONE of you know of the plan for conquest of the ME.
Have none of you ever heard of the PNAC?
Wake up! Your future was being planned over twenty years ago.
I fondly imagined that those in ZH know at least as much as I do, but cognitave dissonance seems to rule.
Fact: ALL current wars were planned 20-30 years ago.
911 was an inside job, so as to 'justify' all of those wars and the lock-down, in the US, by Homeland Security.
Since any marginally credible 'threat' of Communism disappeared, the PTB had to invent another "existential threat", i.e. Islam and the nonsense of Islamo-Fascism.
That is utter nonsense, because no Islamic state comes anywhere near what Mussolini defined as the bundle/complex of state, industrial, military, banking, government, corporate, etc. intermingling state interests,
Washington and its European satraps ... and Gulf states ... are the epitome of fascism.
Rant over.
...human activity influences weather/climate, it is the wholesale Industrial/Agricultural/Social Destruction of the Amazon and many other regions of the world which have led us all to "The Eve Of Destruction".
Setarcos, i'd find it hard to find a sentance more wrong.. are you an Obumma speech writer?
There is no global warming, the loony left can't do science (fact)
There is no limit to productivity or economic growth, the loony left can't do economics (fact)
Industrial and Agricultural production are not "destructive" they are constructive/productive (fact)
The Amazon and other rainforests are in fact growing (back) faster than they are being cut down, the loony left cannot do agriculture or maths (fact)
You are (yet another) ignorant loony leftie ...put a sock in it peanut brain
Was beginning to think Cognitive Dissonance was back ....