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"Next Time Around The Feds Are Going To Have To Confiscate Stuff"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by James H. Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Events are moving faster than brains now. Isn’t it marvelous that gasoline at the pump is a buck cheaper than it was a year ago? A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating, unaware that the low oil price is destroying the capacity to deliver future oil at any price. The shale oil wells in North Dakota and Texas, the Tar Sand operations of Alberta, and the deep-water rigs here and abroad just don’t pencil-out economically at $45-a-barrel. So the shale oil wells that are up-and-running will produce for a year and there will be no new ones drilled when they peter out — which is at least 50 percent the first year and all gone after four years.

Anyway, the financial structure of the shale play was suicidal from the get-go. You finance the drilling and fracking with high-yield “junk bonds,” that is, money borrowed from “investors.” You drill like mad and you produce a lot of oil, but even at $105-a-barrel you can’t make profit, meaning you can’t really pay back the investors who loaned you all that money, a lot of it obtained via Too Big To Fail bank carry-trades, levered-up on ”margin,” which allowed said investors to pretend they were risking more money than they had. And then all those levered-up investments — i.e. bets — get hedged in a ghostly underworld of unregulated derivatives contracts that pretend to act as insurance against bad bets with funny money, but in reality can never pay out because the money is not there (and never was.) And then come the margin calls. Uh Oh….

In short, enjoy the $2.50-a-gallon fill-ups while you can, grasshoppers, because when the current crop of fast-depleting shale oil wells dries up, that will be all she wrote. When all those bonds held up on their skyhook derivative hedges go south, there will be no more financing available for the entire shale oil project. No more high-yield bonds will be issued because the previous issues defaulted. Very few new wells (if any) will be drilled. American oil production will not return to its secondary highs (after the 1970 all-time high) of 2014-15. The wish of American energy independence will be steaming over the horizon on the garbage barge of broken promises. And all, that, of course, is only one part of the story, because there is the social and political fallout to follow.

The table is set for the banquet of consequences. The next chapter in the oil story is more likely to be scarcity rather than just a boomerang back to higher prices. The tipping point for that will come with the inevitable destabilizing of Saudi Arabia, which I believe will happen this year when King Abdullah ibn Abdilaziz, 91, son of Ibn Saud, departs his intensive care throne for the glorious Jannah of virgins and feasts. Speaking of feasts, just imagine how the Islamic State (or ISIS) must be licking its chops at the prospect of sweeping over an Arabia no longer defined as Saudi! The Saudis are so spooked that they announced plans last week for a kind of super Berlin-type wall to be constructed along the northern border with Iraq. But that brings to mind a laughable Maginot Line scenario in which the masked invaders just make an end run around the darn thing. In any case, Saudi Arabia will already be disintegrating internally as competing clans and princes vie for control. And then, what will the US do? Rush in there shock-and-awe style? Bust up the joint? That’ll make things better, won’t it? (See American Sniper.)

Meanwhile, there will be plenty to contend with state-side. The next time there is a pratfall in the stock and bond markets and the TBTF banks — and there is sure to be — the rescue tricks are liable to be a whole lot more severe than the TARP, ZIRP, and QE hijinks of 2008-2015. Next time around, the federals are going to have to confiscate stuff, break promises, take away things, and rough some people up. The question is how much of this abuse will the public take? I take a certain comfort knowing how heavily armed America is. And not just the lunatic fringe. The thought of Hillary and Jeb out there beating the bushes for big money makes me laugh. They are so not going happen. Just wait. For now, take this MLK holiday break to reflect on the fragility of our own country, and gird your loins for the week to come.

 

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Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:01 | 5680460 scattergun
scattergun's picture

I was trying to figure out the "zj" also.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:55 | 5680656 Almost Solvent
Almost Solvent's picture

"Zip Job"

 

A Zip Job is getting a hand or blow job while intoxicated (drugs or alcohol) {usually while keeping one's pants on - just open the zipper}

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:40 | 5680605 SpaDe
SpaDe's picture

If you have to ask, then you clearly cannot afford one......

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:17 | 5680515 dexter_morgan
dexter_morgan's picture

Don't know that for sure :-)

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 22:41 | 5682321 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

He went to church instead of watching football.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:23 | 5680019 didthatreallyhappen
didthatreallyhappen's picture

please note:  effeminate eurotrash have no idea what you just said!

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:03 | 5680200 Renewable Life
Renewable Life's picture

But those boot stomping, hooligans that are showing up by the hundreds of thousands in Germany to protest the immigration and Islamization of their Country, do!

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 18:02 | 5681258 Arnold
Arnold's picture

And the largest MLK ralley in the States is in Texas. You go figure, I gave up.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:01 | 5680462 Abitdodgie
Abitdodgie's picture

From an American's point of view it was not quite perfect he did not kill anything.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:37 | 5680335 junction
junction's picture

Obama's role model is the Kenyan politcian described below who stole a school's playground and had protesting students teargassed.

NAIROBI, Kenya (Associated Press) - Kenyan police Monday tear-gassed schoolchildren demonstrating against the removal of their school's playground, which has been allegedly grabbed by a powerful politician, said a Kenyan human rights activist.

The students from Langata Road Primary School were in the front line of people pulling down a wall erected around the playground which has been acquired by a private developer said to be a powerful politician, said Boniface Mwangi. Primary school children in Kenya are usually between six and 14 years of age.

"The governor, the senator and other government officials are all scared of the politician, they cannot do anything to stop the playground from the being taken," Mwangi said. Television footage showed children, some being carried away, writhing in pain, screaming and choking because of the tear-gas. Police officers later brought dogs to the playground.

Acting police chief Samuel Arachi said he had suspended the police officer who was in charge at the scene of the protest.

In such an incident tear gas is not used because the protests were not violent, Arachi said. He said five people have been arrested; three for vandalism and two for incitement.

"We will never allow officers to use force not only on any citizen more so on children whether in a demonstration or otherwise," he said.

Elijah Mwangi, who was in charge of the police officers at the school, said he was following orders.

Opposition politician Eliud Owalo said last week that the playground had been grabbed to construct a parking lot for the politician's hotel adjacent to the school.

"This is brutality beyond words and greed beyond description. It is difficult to believe that police can actually deploy against primary school children and lob tear gas at them to defend a land grabber. This image of a nation determined to steal forcefully from its own children cannot be what we aspire to. It cannot be the legacy we want to bequeath the children," said opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Allegations of land seizures by Kenyan officials has become a controversial issue in the country.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:49 | 5680412 Uber Vandal
Uber Vandal's picture

@ SameAsItEverWas

Refer to what Ron Paul said just four short years ago:

http://nation.foxnews.com/ron-paul/2011/09/07/ron-paul-border-fence-will...

 

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 02:50 | 5682861 JLee2027
JLee2027's picture

A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating, unaware that the low oil price is destroying the capacity to deliver future oil at any price.

 

Complete nonsense. Low prices are due to a glut in the market plus lowering demand due to the worldwide economic depression.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 10:50 | 5683571 Mayer Amschel R...
Mayer Amschel Rothschild's picture

Whoa, glut of crude oil?!?!?  You're going to be crucified for speaking in a such a diabolically, non-ZH group-think sanctioned manner.  ZH-blasphemy, I say!!!  I salute your willingness to questioning the unquestionable around here.

 

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 08:56 | 5683173 meterman
meterman's picture

Where are hyou going?

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 12:59 | 5679905 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

"A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating"

Hey, I resemble that remark.

"In short, enjoy the $2.50-a-gallon fill-ups while you can, grasshoppers, because when the current crop of fast-depleting shale oil wells dries up, that will be all she wrote."

Two-fiddy?  You're kidding me, right?  I filled up in Jersey yesterday at $1.91.

"gird your loins for the week to come"

I am a world-class loin girder.  I do it daily.  My wife hasn't been able to work straight for years.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:28 | 5680309 NihilistZero
NihilistZero's picture

Hey, I resemble that remark.

This whole article reeks of confirmation bias bullshit.  The idea that low priced oil destroys the ability to pursue future production when prices rise is retarded.  Like something a .gov sycophant would say.  "If you don't do (A), (B) is out of the question forever.  If there is any tenet left of true capitalism in the world it is greed.  Given the proper timing oil extraction/production industries would either come back, or be replaced by new ones.  If the oil is needed there is money to be made and someone will fill that void.  If TPTB were able to inflate a new Housing Bubble 4 years after the bust, I'm sure they can restart oil development industries should the need arise.

And has anyone considered that part of the global demand drop is that older, inefficient vehicles are getting cycled out daily?  I just bought a full size V8 RAM pickup that is getting over 2MPG better than my '98 V6 Pathfinder.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:07 | 5680488 Abitdodgie
Abitdodgie's picture

I run a 96 geo at 50mpg and a 97 dodge neon at 35mpg do any modern cars get that milage beside hybrid crap.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 18:20 | 5681329 NihilistZero
NihilistZero's picture

You driving those cars is immaterial.  you're in a sub-microscopic minority.  The fact is people who have replaced cars (assuming in the same class) over the past few years have seen a substantial increase in gas mileage.  That is an undeniable factor in demand decline.  I'm not saying it's the leading factor, but it can't be discounted.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 12:58 | 5679910 MissCellany
MissCellany's picture

$2.50 a gallon? Freaking New York State taxes.

Here in Appalachia, it's around $1.95 at the pump.

Oh...but the JHKs of the world sneer at places like this.

Teehee. Let 'em.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:42 | 5680104 Archive_file
Archive_file's picture

Roughly $2.85 for regular unleaded, San Francisco.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:48 | 5680127 Kprime
Kprime's picture

enjoying your commie taxes  :=)

 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:19 | 5680517 LFMayor
LFMayor's picture

Well, don't forget the assless leather chaps and studded codpiece parades!  There's more to just gasoline prices to consider when you're thinking about where to live, you know

/sarc off, just in case it wasn't apparent.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:47 | 5680119 Kprime
Kprime's picture

here in East Tx, it's 1.72 per gal

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:05 | 5680213 Bob
Bob's picture

FWIW, we've been looking at $1.69 for at least a couple weeks here in Michigan and under $2 for the past month. 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:42 | 5680372 Rockatanski
Rockatanski's picture

in tucson,

diesel can be found for 2.39

gas at 1.75

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:03 | 5679926 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

Sooner or later any dictatorship has to crack down in order to keep power . Venezuela is in the process now but America is a different animal. I see the Feds trying on a large scale to nationalize the country but they aren't ready for low intensity conflict. Things will get interesting....

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:03 | 5679933 Tinky
Tinky's picture

Hmmm...I wonder if Kunstler follow John Robb. Note the connection, and gain further insight into possible impending Saudi troubles:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01/saudi-arabia-on-the-edge-of-an-abyss.html

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:08 | 5679947 Archive_file
Archive_file's picture

Just started my "jiffy-pop" popcorn, hang on...

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:03 | 5679934 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

"Next time around, the federals are going to have to confiscate stuff, break promises, take away things, and rough some people up."

- They are already confiscating stuff = bogus asset forfeiture

- They are already breaking promises = everything they say is a calculated lie

- They are already cracking donkey skulls with a police force trained in military occupation tactics, it just isn't published in the corporate media and you have to read about it in the alternative media.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:06 | 5679943 pods
pods's picture

This does present a very valid problem looming.  Prices are below costs and that just does not bode well for a supply.

Credit implosion deflation has a way of doing that.  

pods

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 17:07 | 5680988 mkkby
mkkby's picture

Prices are below DEVELOPMENT costs -- just to make that clear.  Wells that are producing cost very little to keep going, so the spigots are open.

Which is why the low prices will continue for years.  The major producers are pumping at full tilt to maintain their standards of living.  When they start running out, that's when supply will need to be replaced.  Price will have to go back up to justify the investment.

Once prices are back up, there will be plenty of new money chasing the dream of discovering oil.  This is just the latest in the ongoing boom/bust cycle.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:07 | 5679950 readyforit
readyforit's picture

We girded some folks loins.

 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:08 | 5679951 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

Well part of Saudi Arabia properly belongs to the Kingdom of New Babylon, it seems.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-mid...


The question is has it served its maximum use as against Russia and Iran - probably not. 


Those Salafist nutjobs are doing God's work - not my God, mind you, but that cunt you read about in the Old Testament  - you know the guy, crazy ethnocentric xenophobe with a penchant for murdering the innocent?


I don't trust any Omnipotent, Omniscient Being who has to take a day off to "rest."

 

 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:07 | 5679953 Absolute Truth
Absolute Truth's picture

$1.77 in memphis, TN, this AM. Bert go fill up the King Ranch while I'm at it.

Did get burnt in the stocks tho. Incredible how nowhere I read or listened to forewarned me of this.. Not even Jim Willie!! Proves that we are all just guessing and TPTB will continue their game... At least until this numerology thing plays out and Lagarde pulls some stunt to satisfy Lucifer.

Maybe on 2/5/15? 2+5=7
:P

Gene Rosen

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:42 | 5680370 Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

keep an open mind, y'never know. . .

that recent Economist cover certainly went overboard on symbolism - pair of arrows with "possible" dates: 

11.3 & 11.5       11 March (anniversary of Fukushima, 11.3.11)

                       11 May?

Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations by majority vote on 11 May 1949

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, numbers don't really mean anything, right?

still, if you're gambling in the markets, numbers might be of interest. . .

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:10 | 5679960 Mayer Amschel R...
Mayer Amschel Rothschild's picture

"A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating, unaware that the low oil price is destroying the capacity to deliver future oil at any price."

 

Where's the data to suggest there's isn't a glut of supply currently?

 

Have you seen crude prices from the 80s & 90s?  At $20/barrel who remembers supply interruptions?

 

Prepare for <$10/barrel in the next 20 years.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:12 | 5679975 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

you are insane.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:38 | 5680084 Mayer Amschel R...
Mayer Amschel Rothschild's picture

Do you remember, "Gold, bitchez!" around these parts?  Remember, there was no way gold was not going to $10,000/oz.  But, what happened?  ZeroHedge common sense cannot keep shouting inflation to all commodities, when reality is slapping us in the face with the opposite message.

 

Crude oil, bitchez!

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:48 | 5680121 DIgnified
DIgnified's picture

 

 

Only one thing happening at a time.

-CNBC educated economist.

 

 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:09 | 5680231 bluskyes
bluskyes's picture

the only people railing about 10k gold, are those who are trying to sell it for 2k. Because all PM dealers are altruists at heart.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:15 | 5679991 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture

The low prices are due to demand destruction and margin calls. Nothing more. Oil will not stay low forever, it can't be pulled out of the ground at those prices.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:38 | 5680346 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

"Oil will not stay low forever, it can't be pulled out of the ground at those prices. "

I have been lied to far too many times to take any such statements at face value.

IF OIL itself is cheap then it should be cheaper to extract more of it and not the other way around.

Financialization and debt market dynamics in a highly inflationary monetary cycle would seem to me to be as much a problem that difficulty in extraction/production.

The probelm is MONETARY.  The debt merchants have inflated the money supply beyond sustainability of industry to shoulder the previously incurred debts.  Missallocation is inhibiting the market as much as anything.

The 'price' of oil is a numerical abstaction based upon a highly inflationary debt-based monetary system and rigged markets.

There is no such thing as too high or too low a price for oil.  Either Oil can be extracted for less energy than it can produce or it cannot and no 'price' can change that fact.  Arguing over 'price' in a phony monetary experiment environment is laughable.

Either the world is running out of oil and real honest to God supply and demand will force market discipline or the world is not running out of oil.

Should the markets actually be unfettered from the manipulations of monetary and commodities cartels and speculation via leverage in the financial and commodities trading systems 'price' will become evident and whether or not a particur extraction venture is economically rational within the broader context of global production will become evident.

IMHO, until the mismanagement and manipulations of markets by the the monetary cartels and the leveraged speculation within the financialization and trading systems cease it will not be possible to conclude whether or not there is a genuine supply and demand problem that may or may not be associated with depletion of oil reserves.

Whether or not oil is becoming scarce or not the intelligent thing to do would be to seek ways to minimze energy usage and create alternate forms of energy production.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:37 | 5683245 BigJim
BigJim's picture

ThroxxOfVron, let me introduce you to comma; comma, this is ThroxxOfVron.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 12:46 | 5688383 Livermore Legend
Livermore Legend's picture

"......The 'price' of oil is a numerical abstaction......"

Precisely...

The True Metric is EROEI....

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 02:01 | 5682809 usednabused
usednabused's picture

What do you mean it can't be pulled out of the ground at those prices? When was the law passed that anyone involved with energy production needed $250,000 a year? Which is what it seems to be based on talk I hear from some who work in ND. Maybe they'll bring in the chinese or whatever to do it for free, like they built Hoover dam etc. I also know a few pipeliners and let me tell you about the gravy train they ride on. Like welders that weld one seam a day. Maybe 1/2 hrs work. Other workers hours routinely padded 30%. Pickups fueled up from the company fuel tanks and the list goes on and on. All due to cost plus contracts. SO tell me again why they just can't pump that oil for less? lol

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:38 | 5683252 BigJim
BigJim's picture

Personnel are only one part of the cost. It's capital intensive; ie, it runs on debt.

If the debt can't be paid, eventually they'll go bankrupt.

'Sure we're losing $20 a barrel; but we'll make it up in volume!"

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:34 | 5680055 Mayer Amschel R...
Mayer Amschel Rothschild's picture

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/brent-crude-oil

 

In the link push the chart as far back in time as it will go: 50 years in this case.  Can you spot a bubble?  Stop rationalizing.  Stop regurgitating your government approved messages regarding crude oil.  Crude oil is no different than housing, bonds, stocks, etc.  This m'fer is not getting back up off the canvas. 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:17 | 5679962 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture

The fed will just monetize the shale debt, and oil wells to the list of assets they own in exchange for paper promises. Problem solved.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:19 | 5679998 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

And they value of a dollar will be halved versus the price of gold.  Comme ci comme ca.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:18 | 5680009 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture

That's what we thought 4 trillion dollars ago. It seems their gold suppression skills are formidable.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:26 | 5680030 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

Until we find the hole in the Death Star.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:10 | 5679966 Chad_the_short_...
Chad_the_short_seller's picture

Gas is $1.60 in Kansas Shitty.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:12 | 5679970 kevinearick
kevinearick's picture

Empire Catapult Construction

As you may recall, this is where I came in…

How do you look at both sides of the fulcrum simultaneously? What does that tell you about R,C,L,P,V & T? What is time and frequency?

The empire physicists, trained to prove that labor is replaceable, with a machine, building and destroying middle classes for the purpose, are trying to buck the Euro against the Dollar, again, and failing, because both are based upon self-biased civil regulation and so-projected data to implement monetary policy, ignorance chasing idle capacity as a virtue, hoarding, playing last to lose.

Fostering a competition for government grants within artificial borders, debt, and real estate inflation across those borders, devaluation, to the end of natural resource exploitation, is the common feudal control system, the irrational assumption that the planet is stupid, not an economy. If you are going to enter the casino, bet accordingly. As History demonstrates repeatedly, disposable empires cast labor forward when the climate changes, across the resulting natural output gap.

All real work, recharging the battery, gets done in zero time, privacy, which the empire eliminates for the sake of discharge. Popularity measures present efficiency relative to the past, ignoring opportunity cost in the future, repeating the process until all ends badly. Social classes voting to pay themselves in debt and devaluation, blaming each other for outcomes, and governed by increasingly arbitrary scapegoat administrators, growing income disparity, is no accident. In the empire, stupid is the premium.

Those monitoring devices are not prototyped in a lab by accident and don’t fail in the real world by accident. And adding layers of arbitrarily programmed hedges doesn’t help. DC RLC depends upon an environment that becomes increasingly variable as it is controlled, as the consequence of unseen transient proliferation builds to threshold. Empires of ignorance and greed collapse of their own accord; you might want to position yourself ahead of the wave.

The price of those circuit boards were supposed to fall to zero, but exploded exponentially, if you include the cost of all the middlemen and middlewomen participating in the layers of proprietary extortion. And gold doesn’t work any better than digital or fiat, because the feudal moneychangers control all three, all of which can be replaced with a stick.

Empires are demographic ponzies, with living standards that can only fall with demographic deceleration. Managing false flags in a cloud computing system, with a master and slave for everyone, Wilma telling Fred how to move rocks, and Fred telling Wilma how to have babies, from the other side of the planet, competing for equality, only increases deceleration, participants losing the ability to reproduce, trying to control yours.

The global middle class is caught in a trap of its own construction, issuing arbitrary pieces of paper to those that comply with peer pressure review, pointing fingers at scapegoats that no longer suffice. If every banker were fired, nothing would change. Good luck with that approach, as global discovery pops misdirection off the stack, in a game of last to lose, avoiding responsibility with isms. Congratulations, everyone wins a welfare check.

All monetary theories are internally inconsistent, requiring increasing militarization, debt and devaluation to enforce, until they blow up. Of course Germany is in an untenable position again. Driving others into poverty with usurious loans doesn’t make you better or worse than those accepting the loans with no ability to repay. There is only an exit if you are the exit, and East Germany is not the exit. You trade currency every day; practice discounting.

The perception of a closed system chokes itself to death every time, by design, in a get-them-before-they-get-you competition for artificially scarce resources. Energy use has been falling for some time, despite artificial variability in price and every other measure employed to sustain it, by Democrats and Republicans alike, while climate variability continues to rise. All empires grow hysteresis.

Welfare checks for babies is the worst trade in the system, a signal to be noticed. Build the meter, not the supercollider, and the gate will present itself. SPICE and code libraries are not the answer, for what should be obvious reasons. Why would intelligent people allow others to set the price of currency at their location, and if they cannot settle their own affairs how can voting be anything other than a scam?

Let the critters focus on free income from real estate inflation, while you focus on wages to rent and time in the empire, giving the empire an identity to track with 10% of your time, instead of complying and rebelling 90% of the time. Flip the empire on its head, by filtering out stupid.

Empires breed emotion to replace love. If you wouldn’t go to a court of law looking for love, why would you drop your children off at any public institution, the derivatives, expecting love. Rebelling against a buffer is a waste of time. Jealousy, a jury of empire peers,  breeding poverty among children, does not produce good economic results. Love is not an emotion; it’s an action, which is why the government’s war on poverty produces poverty, growing income disparity, which it hides with inflation, until it can’t.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:13 | 5679985 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

You translated that into Japanese, and then back, before posting - am I right?

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 17:12 | 5681014 mkkby
mkkby's picture

Yep, then he logged in multiple times and upvoted himself.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:43 | 5683264 BigJim
BigJim's picture

Oh, I don't know, I think

The empire physicists, trained to prove that labor is replaceable, with a machine, building and destroying middle classes for the purpose, are trying to buck the Euro against the Dollar, again, and failing, because both are based upon self-biased civil regulation and so-projected data to implement monetary policy, ignorance chasing idle capacity as a virtue, hoarding, playing last to lose.

has a certain Beat Poetry kinda thang happening.

No idea what it means, though.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:52 | 5680147 centerline
centerline's picture

Enjoyed your post Kevin.  Thanks.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:40 | 5680377 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

"Energy use has been falling for some time, despite artificial variability in price and every other measure employed to sustain it "

Indeed.

I maintain that the probem is as much one of a crooked and mismanaged monetary system.

The whole discussion has devolved from or been diverted from actual market considerations into speculative and accounting fantasies.

The monetary/debt system has been precluded from clearing and reforms blocked to protect the status-quo oligarchs manging this bastardized debt-based monetary rube goldberg contraction for their own benefit -and populaces be damned.

ALL considerations of a 'price' for oil are bullshit save whether or not it costs more energy to extract and bring to market at any given place/time than the energy that would be provided by the oil.

Oil is just like everything else.  It is either a sum positive or a sum negative ENERGY proposition.

Money aka 'Price' has fuck all to do with it.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:34 | 5680579 mc225
mc225's picture

tight, man

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:48 | 5680646 Billyfx
Billyfx's picture

Sounds like 12 slam poems. The words all sort of work together, but damned if I can find any conclusions, or a premise, or any facts, or much of anything in this epic "reply to a ZH article". But darned entertaining, and I reckon is the answer to that old theorum about whether an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters could write a Shakespearean verse, or the Bible, or even a Harry Potter novel. Nope. But bet with enough weed they could write this.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 18:50 | 5681427 STP
STP's picture

You ain't read nothing yet.  Try one of Radical Marijuana's posts, if you want to wade deep into a very obtuse, but spot on line of thinking!  You won't come out unscathed.  He writes like they did back in the day, before TV shortened the attention span to ten seconds.  Well worth reading

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 00:40 | 5682678 The9thDoctor
The9thDoctor's picture

Radical Marijuana is definitely the best.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:44 | 5683277 BigJim
BigJim's picture

RM is wordy, sure, but his writing can be parsed, and meaning extracted.

This guy? Not so much.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 00:59 | 5682710 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

 

"An artist is an incipient introvert pining after the love of women."

 

Sigmund Freud

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:12 | 5679973 Son of Captain Nemo
Son of Captain Nemo's picture

In 2008 financial terms... Coulda... Woulda... Shoulda....

How many "Pass Go" cards do the American people deserve?...

Got what is coming to us!!!

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:13 | 5679982 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

What will be chopped first are government workers and contractors that provide discretionary services (as is going on now with the IRS and the late tax returns). Next will come reductions in workers providing entitlements - meaning longer lines and longer waits to get your entitlement. Regulators of non-entitlements will go next, so watch for more pink slime. However, regulators and inspectors for anything generating government revenue or checking on entitlement fraud will grow. Laws will be passed adding or raising fees and taxes on even more things. A big new target will be property taxes - they want to confiscate your property. We will also see more of what Obama will talk about on Tuesday - if you earn more than $x then you pay more taxes -- or the similar tactic of means checking government programs or tax credits so you don't qualify or you don't get a government contribution to the cost (like Obamacare). Only then will they start confiscating of bank accounts. But of course, if US banks get into trouble, or things collapse, they will 'bail in' anything over $100,000.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:18 | 5680005 semperfi
semperfi's picture

most people have jack-squat in the bank - the people that do are in the club and will get out before it happens like in cypruss

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:15 | 5679986 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

This article sums up everything that we here at ZH have been writing for the last few weeks.  Kunstsler, care to join our club?

:)

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:15 | 5679989 semperfi
semperfi's picture

confiscate?  awesome!  that way I won't have to drag all that crap in my garage to Goodwill by myself

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:18 | 5680004 didthatreallyhappen
didthatreallyhappen's picture

but there goes your tax deduction!  lololol

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:48 | 5680124 Solar
Solar's picture

How long before they confiscate tax deductions.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:17 | 5679993 orez65
orez65's picture

$1.68 in Oklahoma City.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:19 | 5680000 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

90/91 Yugoslavia? They went into banks and busted open SD boxes.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:25 | 5680015 Smegley Wanxalot
Smegley Wanxalot's picture

James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com is clearly a stupid fuck who is losing his ass in the junk bonds he sunk his life savings into.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:32 | 5680050 directaction
directaction's picture

Plus let's not forget that back in the post-911 '00s he was among those originally pushing for more and more war in Iraq, even before it became fashionable among his "kindred."

He may be right this time about low oil prices offering a clear sign of a collapsing economy, but then again, the rest of us already know this.   

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:24 | 5680020 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

My guess is they go for inventories at mom and pop stores. Jewlers and coin dealers first.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:26 | 5680032 Babaloo
Babaloo's picture

So, high oil prices are a good thing?  

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:28 | 5680037 Consuelo
Consuelo's picture

The Feds already have the 'gird yer loins' scenarios played out, up one side & down the other, 50 ways 'til Sunday.   It won't be a house-to-house SWAT raid combing the nation for preppers.    That is not what they have in mind - initially anyway.   First comes 'winning hearts & minds' to their side - whatever and however that dynamic works out - they will attempt it First.   Widespread marginalization and demonization is saved for last, once the majority has been rallied around a 'cause'.    At that point, property, food, self-reliance, and remote locations become essentially meaningless as it becomes only a matter of time.   

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:41 | 5680102 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

Consuelo

If the problem is a dollar collapse I don't see a broke government hiring many stooges. The USG will have soooo many broken promises (Medicare , SS, EBT...) that they will have a hell of a time comvincing the folks that they have a plan. Where will they find the wealth to steal? It will finally have to be created first.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:40 | 5680359 Gault The Denier.
Gault The Denier.'s picture

America is so large they ( government) will be busy trying to control cities while the milita bring transportation to standstill. The interstates will be a parking lot.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 18:24 | 5681346 Calmyourself
Calmyourself's picture

Hmm, maybe they only supply the cities they control....

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 19:41 | 5681614 STP
STP's picture

See something, say something!

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:30 | 5680044 samsara
samsara's picture
My analogy for the low Oil Prices is .... The tide going out before a tsunami. Everybody is on the beach picking up starfish and shells, and filling cars for 2$ a gallon. Well, the tide will come back in, a lot higher than before....
Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:46 | 5680112 Hubbs
Hubbs's picture

That is assuming that the economies make a recovery to drive the demand back up. Problem is, the very act of the stake in the heart of oil shale companies by this drop in prices not only has the ability to decimate the shale industry, but the world economy as well- into a a graveyard spiral...in which case low prices could be here to stay until an honest monetary system, GAAP, Glass- Stegall, etc are reinstituted.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:34 | 5680323 Gault The Denier.
Gault The Denier.'s picture

I get the feeling The Banks and politicians will do everything in their power to keep things from tanking until we elect a republican president in 16. Within 6 months the whole system will come crashing down to be blamed on conservitaves. The media will protect Obama at any cost. Just my .02

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 18:19 | 5681334 Arnold
Arnold's picture

That was the November 2013 plan for the Demo s. With rivets popping and seams stretching, the sub is in serious trouble, Captain.

Of course the consov s will be blamed, and rightly so.

The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes all idiots equally hard.

(Unless the critters exempt themselves and cronies)

 

"Round up the usual suspects."

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:31 | 5680045 czarangelus
czarangelus's picture

I kind of wish they would declare open war on the general population of the United States. I'm tired of having to take it and take it and take it and take it without dishing anything out in return. If the definition of "Peace" is Uncle Sam's boot on your face, you can keep it.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:32 | 5680048 firstdivision
firstdivision's picture

ZOMG gas prices are down.  Go buy that American SUV of your dreams, just make sure it isn't any hybrid/low cylinder type. 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:32 | 5680058 Yao
Yao's picture

A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating, unaware that the low oil price is destroying the capacity to deliver future oil at any price.

 

Umm, no.  The largest fire-sale in the history of a rather extraordinarily perilous boom/bust industry is just about to get underway.  Neither the equipment nor the reservoirs are going anywhere and neither will sit idle for long.  Like my great uncle said, "Boy don't ever develop your own leases.  You'll make an awful lot more money buying them from the first guy when he goes broke."  But we've only been at this a hundred years or so, what do I know?

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:36 | 5680080 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

What if they keep the wells on the books like they did housing, to delay recognition of loses? Those cheap rigs may rust before the TBTFs allow them to be sold.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:19 | 5680276 Yao
Yao's picture

Rusty rigs are the ones that come cheaply enough to reliably produce profit.  Personally I've never found rust to be detrimental to a rig's ability to make hole.  But you don't really believe that the TBTF's will be the bag holders in the shale meltdown do you?  

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:54 | 5680434 pipes
pipes's picture

The result and wisdom of your uncle described above, is the precise reason behind the Saudi price slam. When someone posits that the US is behind the Saudi move, someone else invariably counters with "WHY? This hurts US producers too!".

 

Duh...Yeah...Let someone else (independents) do the dirty work, leverage up, and DEFAULT. Big guys can swoop in and pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollar, in an environment of product scarcity and surging prices.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 17:10 | 5680995 Yao
Yao's picture

But of course, I thought that was self-evident.  Though there will be opportunities for those that survive all the way up and down the spectrum from the largest to smallest.  There have always been a lot of opprotunities in the oil patch that were just too small to draw serious money. 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:57 | 5680671 silentboom
silentboom's picture

I'm gonna buy a couple of scrapped wells for my garden, grapes and morning glorys just love to climb them....and with a little modification it makes a great sniper tower.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:33 | 5680068 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

For once I think he's close to seeing the future correctly and with good timing.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:33 | 5680069 Cow
Cow's picture

When the price went down, production slowed and will stop depending on how low it goes.

When the surplus goes away, the price will go up.  Is he saying that production will not start if the price goes up high enough?  Ha!

What a clown.  When has that ever happened ever?  If the price is right, rigs will pop.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:24 | 5680288 Chipped ham
Chipped ham's picture

Shale wells and rigs? Financed by whom? 

What makes price go up? Demand. From whom? Not these fiat financed illusory economiescurrently in the process of collapsing.

Clown?


Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:52 | 5680420 Cow
Cow's picture

I didn't comment on whether there would be demand.  I said IF the price goes high enough, the rigs WILL show up.  Certainly, the demand will have to be there to drive the price up enough.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:32 | 5680325 Joe Wazzzz
Joe Wazzzz's picture

Yes but there may be a significant lag before that happens as investors may be spooked from what just happened. People like to see supply and demand as a series of waves but they are more often a series of stalls. Even if the price rose back up today, many or most investors would look to get out while the getting out was good. Confidence, or lack thereof, trumps supply and demand everytime.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:38 | 5680091 surfvin
surfvin's picture

Let's see what they take when their heads are chopped off.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:40 | 5680092 Hubbs
Hubbs's picture

Things are so screwed up now, the sources of information so suspect, the level of insanity at the central banks so high, that I no longer dismiss ANY opinions on the outcome of this oil shale play/drop in oil prices, interest rates, the price of gold, the markets etc. No predictability. Anything can happen at this point.

The only thing I notice what  I find myself subconciously doing more than anything else is  looking at what gold is doing, (the price manipulation by central banks not withstanding) and then measure what everything else is doing.

Per Paul Craig Roberts- look for a late night Monday night monkey hammering for COMEX gold paper one of these weeks-gold is starting to make a very slow rise as of late. This just can not be allowed to happen.  Naked shorts to the rescue.

Finally, if the Euro holds up after being abandoned by the SNB, where is the money coming from to keep the Euro alive?

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:46 | 5680114 Eahudimac
Eahudimac's picture

This circling the drain we are experiencing was planned centuries ago and was written down in a document known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It takes a few hours to read, but it is worth it if you want to understand where this is all going. I've never been much of a believer in Revelation in the Bible until recently. The two documents seem to be the game plans of good vs evil. When the collapse actually happens and if we see one world leader rise to power above all nations, you can bet your ass it is real. If after reading the protocols, which were written in the early 1900's in Russia, you are still not convinced this facade we live in is being orchestrated at the highest levels of wealth and power to bring the "messiah" to Earth, you are destined to the fate you receive. The protocols are vehemently derided in the media as a hoax, therefore you know they must be true. 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:58 | 5680175 Solar
Solar's picture

Throw the Koran into the mix because its a reverse mirror of Revelation.  Its the dream plan of the fallen angels' side.  Spoiler alert -- the fallen angels lose and host their supporters in hades.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:29 | 5680558 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

Don't forget the Druids.

Just because they keep a low profile and didn't write anything down doesn't mean they're not pulling some strings somewhere.

Druids are sneaky.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:47 | 5680128 alangreedspank
alangreedspank's picture

Long term, demographics are deflationary. The only place where they are inflationary is in countries where people do not even have a tenth of what baby boomers spent in the last decade, and won't spend from now on as they past their peak spending.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:49 | 5680139 q99x2
q99x2's picture

How they going to confiscate stuff? Their microwave crowd control weapons won't be fully functional in the US for four more years.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:50 | 5680143 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Regardless of price, shortages are next.

 

My neighborhood watch and local shooting club have battalion strength armed citizens at the ready. This is the case all over the U.S. so don't piss off the people!!

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:54 | 5680154 Bangalore Torpedo
Bangalore Torpedo's picture

OK this is going to be fun.  How to sour ZH readers against Kunstler in exactly 4 seconds:

 

"Kunstler was born in New York City to Jewish parents,[1] who divorced when he was eight.[2] His family then moved to the suburbs in Long Island. His father was a middleman in the diamond trade.[1] Kunstler spent most of his childhood with his mother and stepfather, a publicist for Broadway shows.[1] While spending summers at a boys' camp in New Hampshire, he became acquainted with the small town ethos that would later permeate many of his works."

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:16 | 5680265 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

Kunstler is a Jew and generally hates guys like me, but that does not mean he is stupid or wrong in this particular case. What he is dancing around is the general concept of Liebig’s Law of the Minimum. Whether you read the German Army study on peak oil or the Hirsh Report or look at what Lloyds had to say about it all of them come to the conclusion that without cheap oil systemic failure is pending. At some point this breaks, and once it breaks, we will not be able to put it back together again. What will result is something totally different. Someone here on the Hedge a few months ago described this economy as a ball rolling down a staircase. It rolls off a step and drops to a new low. Then it gets a bit of a bounce and then rolls off a cliff again. This cycle will repeat until the ball stops. When the ball stops credit freezes, nobody gets paid. When nobody gets paid, it all comes apart.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:00 | 5680457 LFMayor
LFMayor's picture

Boys camp in NH?   Yeah.  More like Neverland Ranch.  Why didn't Macauley testify Jimmy?  Because he liked it.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:12 | 5680499 401K of Dooom
401K of Dooom's picture

Oh dear, you really should leave New England and see more of the country.  I do not object to MR. Kunstler's background.  I object to his analysis when back in the recent past, we had gasoline sold at $1.89 on January 20th of 2009.  I remember W's last day in office and that was the price.  He is free to have his own opinion but not his own facts. 

 

Oh and Mr. Torpedo, if you are implying that the ZH community is anti-semitic, then please go and contribute to daily Kos or some other Catfish blog.  We do not appreciate your contributions here.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 18:07 | 5681269 hardcleareye
hardcleareye's picture

"We do not appreciate your contributions here.".....  WTF!!!!!

Are you using the term "we" as in the "royal we"...... "the plural of majesty"......????

Just so ya know..... you don't speak for me....

 

I don't mind reading postings I don't agree with........  and if it is really over the top... well copy and paste it to Tyler and let him deal with it.....

ZH has many anti Semitic postings, racist, etc etc....  it is the "Blazing Saddles" of blogs (directed by Mel Brooks...  who was Jewish)..... politically incorrect and intended to ridicule all ..... it comes with the territory of having an unmoderated blog....

Here is a little clip to make you laugh....  Blazing Saddle.... De Camp Town Ladies..... keep track of how many politically incorrect stereo types he ridicules in that one clip......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2W1lK7P-I

 

I like Kunstler's podcast....  some of his interviews are pretty good.  I think his other stuff is marginal..... 

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 00:48 | 5682692 Buster Cherry
Buster Cherry's picture

Ha! I like the Blazing Saddles analogy.....so true

 

"The sheriff's what?

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:46 | 5680630 silentboom
silentboom's picture

Are you saying we hate Broadway? 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 23:05 | 5682413 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/01/18/why-i-still-dislike-israel/

http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/11/24/511967-israel-americas-biggest...

 

Yeah a family that got rich in blood diamonds, and a guy who thinks Israel can do no wrong because he's an ethnocentric twat - who could do anything but love and adore him?

 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:54 | 5680162 Smiley
Smiley's picture

They'll just cite eminent domain for creating 'shovel ready' jobs for the sake of growing the economy, empowering minorities, and increasing our outreach to the Muslim world PRAISE ALLAH!

The publicly educated sheep will eat it up as long as you promise them something "free" and or shiny:  It works every time.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:05 | 5680210 deeply indebted
deeply indebted's picture

Exhibit A) The "Individual Shared Responsibility Payment" - mandated by the ACA. We don't need further "proof" of "confiscation," do we?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njOXzasLv1Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQTpC9ALQSg

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:10 | 5680236 Bangalore Torpedo
Bangalore Torpedo's picture

I experience confiscation every Jan., March, Jun, and Sep. 15th  Where they hell has Kunstler been all this time?  Counting Dad's diamonds?

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:12 | 5680238 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

" And then all those levered-up investments — i.e. bets — get hedged in a ghostly underworld of unregulated derivatives contracts that pretend to act as insurance against bad bets with funny money"

James really nails it with those few lines! Hedges have been all the rage for many years now, they were discovered and used as a way to always have your investments insured, in a win, win, bet. But physics which rules all actions in the universe says there are No Win,Win bets. It defies the laws of physics. So the hedge may look like it makes your bet a sure bet, but this is wrong, as sooner or later the losses will show up in the system, as physics says they must.

The reason banks can't fail now, is because of Hedges, all the Derivatives that James points his finger at. These are funny money bets that can never be made good on any larger scale. Hedges of AIG in 2008 were unable to be paid out, this triggered the financial collaspe. So Derivatives designed to hedge investments, were the core of the financial failure, the 2008 events act as proof that hedges can't be paid in a large scale, without collapse of the entire financial system.

James has got it right here, Hedges are funny money fakes. And they will collapse everything, leaving the taxpayers again to pay for the investment communities bets. This runs counter to all theories of capitalism, in fact, it gives the lie to the idea America is a capitalist country. It is not. It is top down communism, with the most communism at the 1% and the least communism at the lowest levels where workers work and try and save. They are subject to raw capitalism, while the 1% bask in Soviet Socialism, that guarantees their wealth and profits.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 00:26 | 5682650 Buster Cherry
Buster Cherry's picture

I always enjoy your posts, though yours strikes fear in my heart.

My eyes are opened, and I realize you're right, we are in a communist society.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 01:26 | 5682755 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

Capitalism and Communism were rendered defunct when Margaret

Thatcher went to Poland with a Financialization scheme cooked up

by Jeffrey Sachs.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:14 | 5680253 Bangalore Torpedo
Bangalore Torpedo's picture

I have to say that this one is over the top.  So magically everything shale is going to evaporate...*poof*  This may be true as long as prices are sub $60.  People seem to forget (incl. Kunstler) that ALL of the oil majors are participants in the fracking fandango, not just mom&pop Drillin'-R-Us, LLC.  So perhaps a bit less drama and hype is in order.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:40 | 5680361 pipes
pipes's picture

Kunstler seems to "forget" alot of things, in order to write this piece.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:46 | 5680388 Gault The Denier.
Gault The Denier.'s picture

Agreed, I'm sitting on a horizontal well right now with a mom and pop company. They are running only 1 rig. Our company is going to keep drilling regardless of the price. As oil prices drop so do the rates that service companies charge. I have already taken a haircut in pay and it wont be the last.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 16:40 | 5680880 arby63
arby63's picture

That is indeed true. I deal in a lot of brass, copper and other metals at the salvage level frequently: Prices are way down. Then again, so are the prices I pay for them, the price of fuel to deliver them, etc. 

I don't know if we're witnessing the first stages of the fabled "deflation" (that EVERYONE says that NO ONE can accurately define), but prices are falling. 

One thing I firmly believe: We haven't had price discovery for virtually anything in 25 years. Hell, we don't know the "price" of a spoon because everything has been financialized and the "skimmers" on Wall Street have no idea.

Once they got complete control over the banks and credit markets, everything became a function of some type of derivative.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:20 | 5680280 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

Anyone seen "American Sniper". How does it play out, is there anything underlying the shooting scenes, or is it a carnival game of shoot the Rag Head? Just wondering if it is worth a watch. James makes reference to it as a model of how the USA deals with nations it conquers. By the way, Iraq is now going to base American troops again at points across the country. Something the USA asked for at the end of the war, and Iraq denied the USA the rights to. Now ISIS has appeared, it evolved from American's Anti Assad Army in Turkey, Jordan and Syria. Anyone would think America invented ISIS to pay Iraq back for failure to allow US troop bases, which the uSA in now getting as part of their aid to Iraq to fight ISIS, an ISIS that did not exist until the USA funded a large Jihad Army with an idea to overthrowing Assad. Some 5,000 EU citizens were allowed to leave the EU to go to American base camps to train for Jihad, against Assad, but now nearly all 5,000 are the European core of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Along with tens of thousands of liberated Libyans, Syrians, Saudi and other ISIS members. In any case, however it happened, the USA now has full basing rights for many thousands of troops and airfields across Iraq, just what they wanted. So it worked out well. All this clever CIA stuff really does work out for zionism nearly every time.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:59 | 5680450 Aussiekiwi
Aussiekiwi's picture

Cowards shooting people from a long way away, mmmm, don't think I would bother.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:50 | 5680613 Smiley
Smiley's picture

Yeah, REAL MEN, pin down helpless little girls and forcibly chop off their clitorises or throw rocks at them till they are dead for reporting a rape.  I mean you gotta be a real pussy to go into a combat area where everybody is armed, wants to kill you and everybody you are working with, and put your life on the line.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 04:19 | 5682919 U-P-G-R-A-Y-E-D-D
U-P-G-R-A-Y-E-D-D's picture

There is plenty of space to accurately defend the conduct of a sniper.  Instead, Smiley, you decided to launch into some sort of nonsense that is totally unrelated.  Oddly enough, the idiot comment about shooting people from afar is accurate - in that snipers shoot from afar.  However, I'm certain those people they shot didn't pin down helpless little girls...etc in your little weird "all Iraqis chop clits" rant.  Get a grip or you hurt the real argument.  

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 14:09 | 5684565 Smiley
Smiley's picture

Of course it comes off as absurd nonsense; that was the point.  I was answering one ridiculous stereotype (snipers are cowards) with another (Iraqis are zealots who chop clits).  Painting with broad brushes usually does come off as asinine, I just used some very bright ugly paint to point it out.  I didn’t realize the connection was that hard to make.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 00:11 | 5682620 Buster Cherry
Buster Cherry's picture

And you, Nancy, are a true fucktard.

 

Throwing rocks at reluctant heros from a keyboard takes guts, but only in your world. The men there in the shit can be thankful you wouldnt bother.

 

Gotta luv those folks that throw that "coward" word around so freely.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:41 | 5683263 Refuse-Resist
Refuse-Resist's picture

SgtShaftoe, Paging SgtShaftoe to the red courtesy troll phone

 

Seriously, I like your insights on matters miitary and soldier related.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:32 | 5680569 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

I saw it yesterday evening.  It is the story of a young man who bought into God and country and mom’s apple pie.  Chris Kyle is portrayed as a typical young man who does what young men do.  Then for a series of reasons he joins the Navy.  At that point he diverges from the general path and becomes a Seal. Seals are world class athletes; they are not normal human beings. 

 

He is depicted as a counter sniper.  If the film is accurate, he was a world class shooter.  He saw himself as a guardian angel over the marines he was sent to protect.  It was a good flick.  He attempted to decompress by helping other soldiers that were suffering from what they had seen and done.  One of those soldiers killed him.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 16:21 | 5680799 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

One of my tenants had a son who was an Army Ranger Sniper that was involved in taking and holding Bagdad. At one of the main bridges, they were confronted by a large force that included some very capable snipers.

My tenant said his son had all the typical doubts about the morality of being in a foreign country with no proof of them being involved in an attack on the US, but the plain fact was that when a RG sniper blew out half his spotters head, the job became a personal mission to destroy as many RG and insurgents as he possibly could.

He became good enough at his job to rate a chapter in a book about the battle for Bagdad. Every dead sniper meant some more of his Army brothers making it home to their families. His only regret is that he didn't take out more of them to protect his fellow soldiers.

That Band of Brothers thing is no myth to combat veterans and the philosophy of morality is a luxury saved for retirement from active duty.

 

 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 16:30 | 5680822 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

Thanks Cloud 9.5,  It sounds like worth trying. I understand where he came from, I went into the Navy at 17 with his exact mind set. A mind set I obtained from small town America, public education and my luthern church. I had not one original thought, I was a wound up patriot who only wanted to serve in my military career of choice. I took 2 years to be educated, Marines helped educate me as we worked closely together at points in my early service. Some of them are very sharp minded, no all are what you would expect.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 16:50 | 5680918 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

No 2 son is in Afghanistan right now.  My prayer is that a good marine sniper is watching over him. 

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 19:48 | 5681640 restelle
restelle's picture

It sounds as though this movie might be intended to support disarming vets due to PTSD.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:45 | 5683286 Refuse-Resist
Refuse-Resist's picture

HOGS in the Shadows is a good book about Marine Snipers in the sandbox, for those so inclined.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425217515/ref=x_gr_w_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=ht...

 

I like the first hand type accounts more than the dry histories written by generals and historians, though both are useful for forming a coherent picture of wars.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 16:36 | 5680858 arby63
arby63's picture

Yes and no I suppose. I don't personally think "we" invented ISIS but they did come about as a result of a series of failed foreign policy actions and possibly external input. That's just a guess.

Having our military based across the middle east was inevitable. We know our elected leaders are clueless. Our bureaucratic leaders are criminals. Our friends play us like the foreign policy simpletons that we indeed are. Where does that leave us if we don't at least try and protect ourselves?

I am pretty confident this isn't one big CIA/Mossad created mess. It is much more diffused and chaotic if that were the case. Seems like too many fingers in the pot and Frankenstein's monster is on the loose.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 09:47 | 5683293 Refuse-Resist
Refuse-Resist's picture

Let us know when they attack Israel or Jewish interests.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:34 | 5680338 Nockian
Nockian's picture

There won't be shortages unless the banks goose up more bubbles to support those that are beginning to collapse.

Instead of cheap money creating real investment and the market acting to allocate resources, it has instead created false wealth for a few. As the tide begins to retreat so the malinvestment begins to unwind. As it does, so those who were employed-directly or the indirectly by the distortion become unemployed. Credit markets dry up and illusiory capital evaporates.

The result is a faster and faster violent unwinding as the market looks for equilibrium. Oil cannot increase in price unless further interventions are undertaken by the central banks. Otherwise oil cannot rise because there are fewer and fewer people to value that commodity.

If the economy is left alone it will eventually tend to equilibrium and correct resource allocation and investment. It's the goosing of the monetary system which has created the unwinding. The bigger the goosing the more violent and unpredictable the unwinding, the longer it will take to stabilise.

This is so predictable it's not funny. The top 0.1% are living off what equates to a war economy in which they are paid many times their true productive worth. In the context of war it is the production of armaments, but in today's economy it is the production of money itself. It is effectively counterfeiting. When the war ends they will see that their accumulated assets and money piles were never really worth what they thought. However whilst the war continues they live high on the hoc. It is in their interests for the current situation to continue ad infinitum. It is also in the states interests and their employees for it to continue.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:45 | 5680376 bshirley1968
bshirley1968's picture

Been seeing a lot of talk about the price of oil and what prices will go to and why.

 

The whole problem with oil and its price can be summed up in one word......DEBT.

Debt drills too much oil too fast.  Debt drives up the price of oil......and everything else.  And debt burns too much oil too fast.   When the debt is contracted oil can't be drilled and it can't be burned because no one can afford anymore debt to drill or burn it.

BUT.....the debt is still there and has to be dealt with.  Debt screws up EVERY market at some point.  True supply and demand based on what the market can afford on its own.....right now....is where we need to be.  If it weren't for the tremendous debt burden, drillers wouldn't have to drill and pump so much to try and stay alive.  Hell, there wouldn't be a 60% swing in markets overnight if it weren't for debt.  Thee only winners in a debt driven market are the banks.  Sure they will sacrifice some of their own but the TBTF will be fine.

The amount of debt needed in the future to get the oil out of the ground will be prohibitive to the future drilling and development.  It will drive the cost up on us all.  DEBT AND THOSE THAT PUSH IT ARE THE ENEMY.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:46 | 5680380 shouldvekilledthem
shouldvekilledthem's picture

PM and bitcoin owners are not affected.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:47 | 5680387 bluskyes
bluskyes's picture

I can't wait for diesel to drop. I'll buy another 1000 gallons.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:56 | 5680439 Aussiekiwi
Aussiekiwi's picture

Its already all set up, Basel 2 has rolled in the requirement for anyone with a term deposit to give 1 months notice before you can get your funds, this was due to the fact that that they did not manage to steal enough depositors money in Cyprus due to many very rich people getting tipped off and pulling their money out a few days before the theft. Additionally legislation now exists to allow banks to Bail  in (Steal) your money when they finally go belly up from recklessly gambling with your money, further Congress has for kind donations from the Banks to their individual slush funds approved the legislation to put the tax payer on the hook for any short fall.

So with all of this carefully put in place its not a matter of 'IF' but 'WHEN' they come for your assets.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 14:57 | 5680441 LFMayor
LFMayor's picture

Make hay while the sun shines, buy some more preps and get ready to beat back the fucking grasshoppers like our dear Jimmy here.  Jimmy's worried about THE COLLAPSE.
THE COLLAPSE is gonna be terrible.  You know, because this gov sanctioned collection and debt slavery shit we have today isn't.

Some of us are cheering THE COLLAPSE, Jimmy.  We want it's purifying fires to at last descend.

On a happier note:  Was at the big Indy show this weekend, AR's were 550 out the door, mags and ammo are available at good prices again. 
Get your nerd ass off the wall and get out on the dance floor, pointdexter, if you aint already cutting the rug.

See you at the races!

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 06:21 | 5683003 lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

Yep! I'm thinking of geting another upper for a spare AR lower I have, just to trade. I was also sent to the armory for school back in the day, so I can fix/build units for people.
***
On another note, I have finished my first solar power project which was a success. I am now running two freezers off solar.

If you do not have the funds to solar your whole house, do it starting with the high-current devices first. I have also designed a solar heating unit with the proper valves to pre-heat my water heater. That job is next. It has tested the math skills I learned in engineering school years ago.

You guys don't know how happy LC was when he flipped the switch on the freezers and took them off-grid.

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 15:05 | 5680471 401K of Dooom
401K of Dooom's picture

Hi Mr. Kunstler, I have a question for you.  If the low price of gas means that the petroleum companies cannot earn enough to finance future endeavours with $2.50 a gallon for regular?  Then how come back on January 20th, 2009, regular was $1.89 per gallon?  I don't recall the petroleum companies having any problems with the price of gasoline being under two dollars back in the recent past.  I guess you are one of the "Libtards"  who want to gentrify the country to save the delta smelt and the prairie vole from extinction.  Now go and move to the Islamic Republic of Iran and tell them how to live their lives.

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