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Deluded Worlds And Unpleasant Realities
Submitted by Mark J. Grant, author of Out of the Box,
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
-Rudyard Kipling
In business, in relationships, words spoken or memorialized in the Press, once out there the damage has been done; the consequences on the way to creation. You can't deny them, you can't hide them and you are accountable for what has passed your lips or the roller ball on your pen. This is just the way of it in the world which is why it is always important to not only choose your words carefully but to carefully decide if they should be released into the wild. Words are the Pandora's Box of everyday life.
“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall.”
-Jodi Picoult
Words also have another fascinating characteristic. When you spit them out you know what you meant. Then someplace in the air between their release and someone hearing or reading them they get jumbled up. What you were trying to communicate is often, and as an author I can tell you with certainty that it is more than one might imagine, that what you were trying to say is not at all what is heard. There have been countless times when I have stared at people's comments about something that I have written and wondered, "Where in God's name did they come up with that?" It is not just "lost in translation" but "lost in space."
“Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.”
-Pythagoras
I make these points today for a very important reason. Mr. Bernanke, and it had to come to this eventually, there was no other real choice, has now unleashed the Fates that could no longer be contained and the harpies are free once more. The world had deluded itself that it would never come to pass. The world had also looked at Mr. Draghi's comments as if they were certain prophecy not uttered by Mr. Draghi himself but as if he was just the mouthpiece for some higher divinity that had taken over his body during the length of his famous speech.
In both cases the world had become delusional. In both cases the fantasy has ended and we have been pushed back to our unpleasant reality where one and one still makes two. Living with Alice in Wonderland was certainly more pleasant!
Mr. Bernanke's comment about "things could change" is nothing more than the recital of verse. Of course, thing can always change and he acknowledged what each of us already knew. There were sounds in those sentences worthy of no significant meaning. What was full of the sound and fury of important meaning though was that the dream was over. With his soliloquy of "ending," the dream was shattered and lays now upon the floor all around us like broken shards of razor sharp glass.
You and everyone else will try and step carefully but you are going to get cut because avoidance is impossible. Bonds, stocks, commodities or Real Estate; you are going to bleed. In the same manner as we cannot invest off-world. We cannot avoid being hurt on-world. The real pain of induced withdrawal from the central banks' monetary creation is upon us. The words cannot be taken back. The meat is minced!
Words, once spoken, are no longer your own. Words, strung together, may be the most powerful spells in our kingdom. Two speeches, one in America and one in Europe buoyed the world. One speech made in America has now ended the experiment. No magic wand was needed.
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here's a few words: Fuck You Bernanke!
Thank's for the actionable advice. Your keen sense of the obvious is breath taking.
"The words cannot be taken back. The meat is minced!"
~~~
"Subprime is contained"... Mince that!
Speeches buoyed the world?
And here I thougt it was the gagillions in FED dollas that was doing it.
pods
'Tis funny. What I heard muttered by Ben Bernanke was the opposite of what has been assumed by the algos, since that fateful day last week.
yea me too. up next, not down.
(Peter Schiff is right again)
CNBC and Bloomberg could take a clue from these...
I wonder if Mark Grant and that dude Lance from yesterday's bond article own the same bond fund. They probably call each other up a few times a day.
"He Mark, it's Lance.....you did not sell right? Because you promised you were gonna call me if you did".
"Words, once spoken, are no longer your own..."
~~~
Fantastic ~ Then that should mean that I should never be booted off ZH for saying anything... I could use the defense that "they're no longer my words"...
"All your words are belong to us!" and stuff ....
Yeah...
~~~
"When you spit them out you know what you meant. Then someplace in the air between their release and someone hearing or reading them they get jumbled up."
So it's not my problem that nobody understands what I'm saying... [Except for the 'Luciferian Anti-Defamation League' in Switzerland that KNOWS all things about all things ~ the rest of you chumps are pikers]...
Hell ~ That must apply to JUNKS too... I'm gonna 'junk' myself just for the LULZ... After all, it wasn't me junking myself...
One day this guy will say something original...maybe
First by inflation and then by deflation..... until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.
any nation that gives the power to print to a private monopolistic
cartel is a nation of ass hats, and eventually, dung eaters.
these people are so simple and mindless.
Benny has precious little time to announce additional stimulus because once this ball gets rolling world wide it's not stopping.
I do find it odd that our entire Federal Edifice seems to depend on discovering the whereabouts of one guy. He's spoken very little but claims to " be able to hack into the President's communications with impunity." that's a rather striking claim. i think i'd want to know how that's possible.
Was it not the stoic philosopher Larry Blackmon of Cameo who said "Dial L for Low, Come on, all you people say, word up."?
you didn't make that junk.
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
--R. Kipling
Always loved that. Will add another favorite.
I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget. Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget. When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision. The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.--Carl Sandburg
But those words will not be the end of the experiment so why were they spoken? That needs an answer.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in his 1839 play Richelieu, writes, "The pen is mightier than the sword."
Dr. Bernanke stumbles upon, "The pen is also mightier than money."
Dr. Milton Friedman is rolling over in his grave.
Bennytopia is ending. Buy everything so you can take it with you.
the tongue is the magic wand, for everything else
there is meat-glue.