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Bill Buckler On Keynesian Religion As World War... And The One "Good" Thing About It
Courtesy of Bill Buckler, author of The Privateer
If It Doesn’t Work - Keep Trying It Until It Does:
Those running the big investment banks and trading floors today bear an uncanny resemblance to the generals on both sides of the conflict in WWI. There is an old military saying about the folly of fighting the “next” war by the methods of the last war. In modern times, the best illustration of the truth of that adage is what happened on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918.
When 1914 dawned, Europe had not seen a continental war for a century. Most of the generals and the vast majority of their political masters on both sides had not noticed that the years since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 had seen what was and remains the greatest technological revolution in the history of the world. Both sides had seen the US Civil War of 1861-65, a war which proved beyond all shadow of a doubt that a frontal assault on an established defensive position was almost guaranteed to fail. Both sides completely ignored the lesson. The literal “cannon fodder” on both sides paid a gruesome price.
The result of this stubborn ignorance, as the history books so voluminously recount, was the antithesis of “bliss”. It was mass carnage. When an attack by 50,000 men proved impotent to the task, the numbers were raised to 100,000 and then 250,000. When an hour of preliminary shelling of the target proved insufficient, it was raised to an entire morning and then to a day and then to the best part of a week. The “big” battalions got bigger and Bigger and BIGGER. The trenches proliferated. The barbed wire proliferated. The casualties proliferated. The destruction proliferated.
The men on the firing line on both sides quickly realised the futility of what those who commanded them were attempting to do. But there was no escape for them. They died in their millions while the generals and the politicians clung tenaciously to the goal of trying to make the unworkable “work”. Any suggestion of a deviation from the frontal assault was fiercely resisted. On the few occasions when it was actually tried, such as the Cambrai offensive with its use of tanks and no preliminary bombardment, it was done over protest and the means supplied were intentionally insufficient to the task. The end came as it was always going to come, with exhaustion.
Four Years Of False Dawns
WWI lasted 51 months, from August 1914 until November 1918. If we go back 51 months from the present, we reach late March 2008 - six months before the Lehman crisis hit. From that day to this, has there been ANY more deviation from the “approved” method of extracting the world from its financial morass than was shown by the WWI commanders in extracting themselves from their military morass?
The answer is crystal clear. There has been NO such deviation. There has simply been more of the same. When half a $US TRILLION in annual deficits proved insufficient to the task, the number was raised to $US 1 TRILLION and then the best part of $US 2 TRILLION. When central bank interest rates equalling the lowest in history didn’t work, interest rates were eradicated altogether. When existing methods of bailing out insolvent banks proved insufficient to the task, new methods were invented in an ever increasing stream. When the results of the inevitable financial carnage became too big to ignore, the figures which reported it were adulterated or simply suppressed completely.
With every new year that has dawned since 2008, the powers that be everywhere have announced that THIS TIME, the recovery is “real”. In March 2012, French President Sarkozy was announcing that: “Today, the problem is solved!” Christine Lagarde over at the IMF proclaimed that: “Economic spring is in the air.” Not to be outdone, President Obama was telling his fellow Americans that: “The recovery is accelerating, America is coming back!” The same songbook was followed in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
It was followed in WWI too, long after the contrast with the REAL situation had gone far beyond the grotesque. Today, there is only ONE place left in the world which still clings to its long-fostered stubborn ignorance. That place is the financial markets. They STILL believe in the BIGGER batallions.
The One “Good” Thing About A Big War:
A “big” war becomes the almost exclusive centre of attention to all those engaged in it, whether on the front or keeping the “home fires burning”. It is impossible to pretend that it is not happening and equally impossible to cover up the devastation in lives and property which it causes. Many people don’t come home from BIG wars, leaving those left behind with agonising and very REAL losses. War causes destruction which is immediate and visible. It is not something that can be swept under the carpet.
Today, we are in the midst of a financial debacle which is more truly global than any world war. There are no lines of trenches, no shattered towns and cities, no casualty lists in the papers and no “we regret to inform you” telegrams being delivered. The carnage is real but it is invisible. No lives have been lost. All that has happened is that the living of life has become more difficult and the ability to rely on the fruits of past efforts for future comfort and “security” has been all but extinguished. The vast majority of the people are cannon fodder in this financial debacle. Like the real thing in the trenches of the Western Front, they have long since realised the futility of the efforts of their “generals”. They know that the “recession” is not over. They are starting to realise that it will never be over as long as the same methods which produced it are being used to get out from under it. But most see no escape, having become used to looking to those same “generals” to tell them what to do.
To an extent which goes far beyond even the politicians and the bankers, the “market makers” want to fight this new financial war with the methods of the old ones. In WWI, the generals held to the end that if your shelling made a big enough noise, the danger of an attack would go away. The “market makers” figure that if they stuff enough new freshly-printed money in their ears, they won’t have to hear the sound of the economy falling away from underneath them. “Less Talk - More Stimulus?” That is a message that the generals of WWI would have understood very well. It didn’t work then. It won’t work now.
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Someone said, "Politics is war in slow motion."
aka "death by a thousand cuts"
Carl von Clausewitz said: "War is the continuation of politics by other means."
He also advocated attacking the strongest point in the enemy line first, because if you can take care of that the rest will collapse.
Clausewitz was a fuckwit in a pretty uniform.
Actually there is merit to the argument.
And it has been used successfully plenty of times.
It is the origin of our term - Main Force.
Yesterday I was commenting to BF about Sandusky.
That many financial people kept repeating the line "this would never happen where i work because we eradicate the scum".
Now now of the following should be viewed as in anyway suggesting that Sandusky is not a sick pedophile, and that the harm he caused to hundreds of people (both directly and indirectly) can never be exterminated, regardless of how much time he spends in jail or how much money Penn State is forced to pay to Sandusky's victims.
I couldn't help but point out that the harm and pain that a) the meltdown of the Financial System & b) the bailout of the Financial System, has caused to 100's of millions of people in the past 5 years is astounding. Yet the "continuation/survival of the system" trumps the "harm caused by the system"......kind of stunning when one realizes that is exactly the rationalization used by Penn State when it failed to stop Sandusky 20, 15, 10, 5, 4, 3 and 2, years ago.
Two weeks ago the NYT's had a 8 page story in their magazine about the number of kids (thousands) using their friends ADD drugs (basically amphetamines) not to get high, but to perform at the level necessary to gain admission to Ivy League schools. The kids had to handle 7AP courses, plus 2 sports. Basically, they needed the drugs so they could get away with sleeping a mere 4-5 hours a night and still get the 4.0 their parents and peers required. All their "friends" (benchmarks) were doing it and they couldn't afford to lose their edge. Now the article looked at how these drugs can be a gateway to addiction (duh) but no where did it question why what we are requiring kids to cheat (and implicitly okaying it), to accomplish what is necessary to gain entrance into the highest echlons of society? Further how do you tell a kid, who has been given the green light to cheat (because the standards were absurd to begin with) to get into the Ivy League, then to graduate with honors from the Ivy League, that when she hits Goldman or JPM that all the sudden, taking heretofore accepatable liberties with respect to what is legal, is no longer acceptable?
I could write another 10 pages on the issues herein. But is is Sunday night and i don't want to pontificate to the point of boring you any further.
I agree with your pontificating, Lizzy as I'm sure many others here do as well.
It sure would be put to pile all this delayed pain on Obama's back and demand he address his role in glad-handing and back-slapping (not to mention back-stopping) those responsible for this mess.
You know, he had the CEO's of the 5 TBTF's by the short hairs in his office and did nothing but let them know good PR is all he expected. Of course Bush mishandled this in the beginning, but Barry has only followed in his footsteps.
crazylegs sandusky?
the guy could score, recruit, and snapped a mean towel, too
Yes, the system (goose that lays the golden egg/market/football program)must be protected at all costs so that everyone involved (ticket takers, bar tenders, traders, clerks) can carry on while the majors rape everything blind.
Pennetration State.
All ranting aside what Goldman and other traders did was likely legal. It likely was unethical and maybe even immoral. Completely different issues though.
As for kids competing and seeking any edge they can get, yeah get used to it. Your kids aren't competing any more with the kids in their class. They are competing against kids domestically and internationally too. It's a crowded world and in a world where you are competing against so many you better be damn good and work really incredibly hard starting at a young age to get there.
The other issue too is that when you get down to it the biggest lie in this country is that 'you can become whatever you want to be.' It's largely a compete load of cr@p. An overwhelmingly majority of people could try every single day to make a professional sports team or become a successful actor or try to hack the math required to get a PhD in Econ/Physics/Math and an overwhelmingly majority will fail because they simply lack the natural ability required that is necessary with the work and dedication.
In a world where there is increasingly specialization and competition, you better either be really connected or really smart & hard-working. The people at the middle will have to fight it and the people at the bottom are dog food.
or you can get with a few of your good friends, buy some land, learn / teach permaculture, natural building methods, greenhouse gardening, aquaponics, get a few fiber goats, learn to drop spindle, make goat cheese, build a chicken coop, learn to play an acoustic instrument, sell in a farmer's market, start a computer-based business on the side, teach, share, have some fun. . .
why on earth would anyone commit a long drawn out suicide competing with other drones for a jawb, however much it might pay out?
there are literally thousands of alternatives to the Ivy League treadmill, if you give up chasing the dangling carrot. . .
http://www.ic.org/
Words of wisdom for those with ears to hear.
Amen.
Trillions in derivatives, etc etc etc I assure you "debacle" isn't going to be the word that accurately describes what's coming.
Ralph Raico is professor of history emeritus at Buffalo State College. In his 2008 article, Was Keynes a Liberal?, he wrote:
Throughout Keynes’s career, however, clear indications appear of his longing for a much more radical social order—in his words, a “New Jerusalem” (O’Donnell 1989, 294, 378 n. 27). He confessed that he had played in his mind “with the possibilities of greater social changes than come within the present philosophies” even of thinkers such as Sidney Webb. “The republic of my imagination lies on the extreme left of celestial space,” he mused (1972, 309). Numerous statements strewn over decades shed light on this somewhat obscure avowal. Taken together, they confirm Joseph Salerno’s (1992) [1] argument that Keynes was a millennialist—a thinker who viewed social evolution as pursuing a preordained course to what he conceived to be a happy ending: a utopia (O’Donnell 1989, 288–94).[2] [1] Joseph Salerno, 1992. The Development of Keynes’s Economics: From Marshall to Millennialism. Review of Austrian Economics 6, no. 1: 3–64, link to PDF: http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE6_1_1.pdf [2] Ralph Raico, Was Keynes a Liberal? The Independent Review, v. 13, n. 2, Fall 2008, ISSN 1086–1653, Copyright © 2008, pp. 165–188. link to PDF: http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_13_02_1_raico.pdfThe money from the Fed is going to the wrong place. Instead of making it easier and easier on the TBTF the Fed should squeeze them like a sow and increase interest rates, then use that money in a huge infrastructure replacement and alternative energy project. Open up all the "black ops" info the gov has been hiding all these years and develop zero point energy or cold fusion. Fuck the oligarchs, let them pay taxes, and let the money flow to those who'll spend it. The depression would be over in 3 months.
The Fed should just go away. As should you.
That banking system computer glitch in England way with RBS/Natwest is almost a week into Never Never Land.
I have been reading comments about paychecks not being deposited, people not being able to pay for food or electricity.
Other banks' transactions are affected, those that interface with RBS/Natwest.
It illustrates to me that too many depend on paycheck to paycheck for survival, that something is horribly wrong with the bank over there and if this doesn't produce a run on a bank owned by the taxpayer, I don't know what will.
I would yank my coin as soon as I had access, transfer to another bank or start dealing cash only.
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. The NWO will not survive and I for one do not want it to. I lived before all this computer interaction and managed to function fine.
I also think that government no longer serves the people and is probably the biggest cause of war on this planet, runaway governments.
excellent analogy regarding ww1 and bernanke's conceited pompous expertise in the last depression....
on a sad note, " President Obama was telling his fellow Americans that....." i hate to inform you that obama is not an american......he is an indonesian citizen....he is not a natural born citizen, but is a total fraud....
www.obamacrimes.com
"President Obama was telling his fellow Americans that....." i hate to inform you that obama is not an american......he is an indonesian citizen....he is not a natural born citizen, but is a total fraud...."
There's some rather strange support for you comment.
The Constitution is overated.
That's because somebody already ate most of it.
Now there's just an empty plate of bones and a couple of gizzards left on the platter.
old-time war moviesWikipedia
here each defendant was tried on up to 4 counts and the first count was dropped b/c it didn't happen during a war
Dr. Hjalmar Schacht I I - - Acquitted Prominent banker and economist. Pre-war president of the Reichsbank 1923–30 & 1933–38 and Economics Minister 1934–37. Admitted to violating the Treaty of Versailles.[34]prominent FED-related (?) bankster knew when to get out and how to get out and was apparently permitted to get his distance from hitler; the soviets didn't believe his cover and wanted to convict
another guy who walked was the DJ at the radio station of the ministry of propaganda...
Schacht was more clever than the Fed of the 20's era...and of the 30's until Eccles came in. Schact did achieve a remarkable "save" with the Rentenmark, and understood too late the disaster that was coming, that he had saved a monster. Early on he worked closely with the worst elements of the coming Reich, a bit oblivious to exactly how murderous the bland creatures were, specifically Himmler. He objected to policy and goals late in '38, just after being pulled into the planning of the invasion of Czecko. He was thrown into a camp when he stopped playing ball. At least he stopped in late 38, and did so long before 42-43 when many jumped ship. As for the Soviets, they suspected everyone of everything and even killed most of their soldier POW's freed from German camps at the end of the war. Nice fellows, eh? Quoting their view is pointless.
Great article - big picture thinking. Bravo.
Market Overflow special **Free Premium Report** with an analysis of the SPX. The full report can be viewed here http://bit.ly/Mui9NQ.
Man, I had a subscription to the Privateer and it was GREAT! But with cash being so low I'd have had to sell gold to renew and I wouldn't do it. Thanks for sharing.
This outstanding analogy tells the story of our world in crisis in a spectacular way. This new big “war” is every bit as vicious and destructive as the big wars of the past.
And I believe that’s it’s important to finally assign motives to these “generals,” such as the central banks and the obscenely wealthy private bankers who own them. These motives are not the same motives as those of the generals who pushed men through the trenches of France. Instead, their motive is nothing short of control of the world’s resources and labor so they can be used for personal power and wealth.
Since 1913, “generals” of the Federal Reserve have been taking the property of citizens, but with their great leap forward to global central planning, personal private property theft has moved to the theft of the sovereignty of nations, of national identity, of entire governments (Greece, Spain, Ireland, et cetera). And make no mistake, if the bidding price for these workers, for these resources and assets, is too high, the streets of the world will be filled with tanks and soldiers.
These money manipulators are not trying to make a Keynesian economic system work; they are trying to conquer the people. Their Keynesian religion is just an excuse; it is merely the vehicle for the takeover, for the conquest of the world’s people to make them slaves. If Fabian Socialist John Maynard Keynes hadn’t come along, they would have found someone or something else.
That’s what Caesar wanted, that’s what Pol Pot wanted, and Lenin and Stalin and Mao and Hitler wanted, and what Netanyahu and the neocons want. They want to control men; they want slaves. They want resources. And after they get a lot of resources, you know what they want? They want more resources.
And, if the slaves revolt, they want them shot.
It can't be a very big war if all that needs to be done is throw a couple thousand elite into prisons. 7 billion against 2 thousand.
The people that listen to Alex Jones (not that he is easy to listen to) are signing up as National Gaurd now in preparations of the big haul.
Futures down. Can't afford to pay PPT overtime. Negative indicator.
Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
...and these are the smartest guys in the room?
Says who?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If1qRsK2T9E
Repel the new world order!
Those with a Voice need to begin attacking the fundamental problem,
but I suspect (and I have plenty of evidence) those with a Voice do not understand,
and therefore will not venture into such a stance...
that problem being, and that stance-against -- yelling at the top of your lungs:
the Pathology of points of control and influence,
which have reached flood stage, akin to an overflowing cesspool,
and that is the final destination of the Self-Absorbed-as-leader, and the Self-Absorbed-as-sycophant.
Good for Mr. Buckler... all good points, but you have a Voice, and you are writing about the symptoms of this arrangement,
and murmuring solutions-sans-Reality.
Shelley ye are many, they are few. http://www.artofeurope.com/shelley/she5.htm
photo of hizzoner before the longRun
Varying accounts of how he was killed were then given by officials at the time, including to NTC leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil.
is this near where somebody shot the RPG at the UN guy's car last month or so? allegedly?
and missed? L0L!!! allegedly?
let's see some tits, benghazi BiCheZ!
Four years of financial trench warfare is nothing .... how about 100 years of trying to kick start Socialism ? Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Stubborn Socialists Semper Fiat
Grist for the ZH intelligentsia grinding machine.
http://news.goldseek.com/LewRockwell/1340551901.php
so here's the results of the "highly competitive" university system,
power, influence. . . money. what else is there in life, eh.
The Ethic of Reciprocity, or the Golden Rule is often disregarded by many people of late. Corporations and governments often ignore that which applies to individuals.
In the end, what goes around comes around, one way or the other. Of course this is anecdotal, only based on my experience and experiences of many others. The beauty of the Golden Rule is it is not religious, athiests and agnostics can subscribe to it and many do. The Golden Rule is a better tag line than "In God we Trust" as Goldman Sachs works for "God", so does the Vatican.
Maybe we can look to the Ethic of Reciprocity as something governments, corporations and people should all adhere too. Then we may not have this mess we are looking at today, what happened in the past, and which is brewing for the future....
the "golden rule" - or the "ethic of reciprocity" requires that one act with some maturity in all interactions.
unfortunately, culture promotes immature "gimme mine now!" behaviours, and many people, particularly those higher up the ladder, are impatiently grabbing everything they see, like little two-year olds set loose. . .
I guess the good news is, we don't have to participate in their three-ring circus, even though it's bound to affect us over time.
but in the meantime, we can opt out of their orbit, and get on with being.
best to you.
It's a shame that Brad Pitt doesn't understand economics. If he did, he would realize that the economic model being followed is monetarism and NOT Keynesian. Note that the author never once mentions Keynes in the article. Only Brad Pitt's headline does.
Most pundits are fighting this economic war out of memory of the most recent fight which was 1970s stagflation. That is why people have their underwear bunched up about inflation during a deflationary downturn. Collective human memory only goes back about 80 years. We've forgotten the lessons of the Great Depression, so I'll quote my grandmother who passed away last year at 91 years old. "When FDR became president people started working again, and what's wrong with that?"
``At least`` back then, war was confined to the battlefields and they weren't using chemical/biological/nuclear/DU weapons that will contaminate this earth for million of years (in the case of DU)...
I wouldn't mind if there were wars... if it all happened on a battlefield and only the fools who fight the wars would die fighting... suckers are gonna be suckers, so at least, keep the rest of us out of your BS.
They want to fight wars? Put them in an arena and the banksters will be able to take derivatives on fighters... that way, they'll get their excitement, their death and the suckers will get what they want.
Problem solved, bring back gladiators... all the suckers in all the armies of the world are autmatically drafted to fight in the gladiator arena... country vs country, like the olympics, but to death. Every year, there's a champion country... for a year, all the other countries who lost must pay tribute to the country who won.
Excellent idea!
No doubt there would be an endless line of suckers waiting to enlist for those games as long as the prizes were adequate (financial as well as sexual for young men).
The suckers get what they want.
The bankers get what they want.
Innocent people aren't hurt.
It's a win-win for everyone!
We do have modern gladiators. They are professionals sports athletes. Despite your claims, gladiators were highly-paid, highly-trianed valuable assets who almost never died during gladitorial combat. Plenty of others were at times but that's a different issue.
Dr. Michael J. Burry at UCLA Economics Commencement 2012
Tyler,
Focus: RBS, the world's biggest bank bust ever and foundation of the Rothschild oligarchy in Britain, goes into its SIXTH day of a 'computer glitch' - a flimsy excuse for a bank run, its way of controlling its implosion. The ordinary people and business suffer because RBS' creditors want their money back, and such sharks are bigger than the minnows caught in the turbulent tide as it goes out, leaving RBS swimming naked.
It is largely State owned since being bailed out with tax money, and there's no mention of the minority shareholders who profit from that - and profit from this 'computer glitch' excuse.
Is this part of the new normal - a bank run when counterparties want their money back and ordinary people can't get cash to pay their bills is described as a 'computer glitch'? The sharks eat the minnows.
Other big banks and hedge funds will get their money out of RBS, but ordinary people will not.
RBS is the big story, no doubt linked to James Sinclair's revelation that an international accountancy firm has hired 900 people to assist a major Wall St bank in putting a number on the losses it will get from failed CDOs. The accountancy firm is getting paid twice is usual hourly rate.
Focus.
This isn't a war. Not even close. This is the fucking prelude, appetizer, lead-in, etc.
In other words, this is how major conflicts start.
Would America have entered WWI had it not been recently bought out by the bankers via The Federal Reserve?
Would WWII have been possible without The Great Depression?
Would the Soviet Union have came into being if not for the economic plight of the Russian peasants and workers?
Buckle up boys and girls. We're just getting started.
I disagree with this:
There are no lines of trenches, no shattered towns and cities, no casualty lists in the papers and no “we regret to inform you” telegrams being delivered.
Ever been to Detroit lately? South LA? Ever look at the suicide rate? Alcoholism rate? Drug use? Broken families? Keynesiansim is very, very destructive.
Rampant alcoholism and broken families didn't exist in the 19th century or previously? Massive societal issues and problems have always existed and always will largely regardless of the economic system.
TRUE! And, it is very hard to pin this carnage on the real culprits. The banksters and politicians. The politicians see the writing on the wall, they are making sure that THEY don't get hanged when the reckoning comes. None of these politicans have EVER been held to account for the words that came out of their mouths or the deeds that they participated in, either by acts of commision or ommision. The banksters know that as long as their bought and paid for politicians are in place, they are protected. Hell, most of the people will end up protecting the politicians and bankster, not even knowing it, but doing it just the same (this is where the movie THE MATRIX becomes so prescient, in that it shows the insidiousness of enslavement of the mind vs the body and that who captures the information that is being disseminated controls what people think - called INFORMATION OPERATIONS - Shaping and Influencing the Human Terrain). Control what people see, and you control what they think, for the most part, that is why controlling the INTERNET is so important. Even obama knows this!
"No lives have been lost."
Not true. Many have already been lost as the direct result of actions taken by the heads of the major investment banks. Before this is over, millions will have died as a direct result of the greatest heist in the history of the capital markets. Even if it doesn't lead to war, which it seems certain to. But the devil is not Keynes, it is capitalism unleashed.
2008 was a test run this time around is the completion of the globalist plan to bring down the U.S and start the N.W.O. this whole debacle was carefully planned and manipulated to bring us to this point.
by whom? Name names, and you'll see it the same face on both sides of the page. Janus was a two faced God!
I live in San Francisco.
Here you are practically seen as a right-wing religious zealot (aka Republican) if all you do is openly wonder (not declare with raised fist) whether the social welfare system (industry) can be improved (not eliminated) with sensible guidelines (not radical slashing) to mitigate (acknowledge) the rampant fraud (repeat: rampant) in Section 8, food stamps, cash grants, etc.
Our beautiful American City here is cracking in its facade under its debt load... racked up in large part to exorbitant pension schemes for public employees, annual city budgets that are bigger than some states and which is nearly 2x that of 10 years ago.. and all of which are based upon the assumption of rolling over its debt to pay off older bondholders.
It's amazing what political deals you can strike if all you do is promise everything to everybody for any reason all the time. After all, you'll be termed out and on to your next gig before the bill collector comes round on your successors, so who cares?
"Our beautiful American City here is cracking in its facade under its debt load..."
Who is it that is standing in the shadows profiteering from the interest paid on that debt load?
...not to mention all similar debt loads on a global scale.
The Empire Of The City by E. C. Knuth (1944)
then after that, read these for amusement purposes(as there's no footnotes or endnotes):
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61fXGD3XRWL.jpg (Part 2)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fsWzCkoxL._SL500_.jpg (Part 1)
It is interresting to understand what is happening, why etc. but once one has realized that the debacle can't, and won't be avoided, the rhetoric becomes pointless. The satisfaction to be right doesn't feed a man.
You can always think that you have prepared for it mentally, if you are living alone in a big city with only a credit card in the pocket and are a consultant or some kind of virtual work, you are fucked. I know I am.
At some point the only thing that will matter is, can you feed yourself without relying on some distribution chain involving oil, electricity etc. and do you have something to offer to other people, like being a mecanician, carpenter or such?
This is the reality. Lonely, divided people in big towns will kill for food. We're not in 1929 anymore at a time people were polite and still had a sense of the word "community". I've been eating 3 years long in a self-service restaurant where people used to agress each other (phisically, verbally) to be the first to get french fries when there were too few for too many people. This is the world the occident is now living in, thanks to the individualist mentality cherished by their elites to divide them.
It won't matter if you are from the left or the right, it will be pointless to argue, it is already pointless to argue endlessly about stupid shit that don't feed, heat, wash and such.
Realize this, and if you can, prepare accordingly. Best of luck;
Tear down the ponzi, tear it all down.
I mentioned the other night how certain people in policy deciding roles in Washington were planning the unthinkable and got flamed like you would'nt believe! This is well worth ten minutes of your time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSmgL43sSWY
Reminds me of the following "Black Adder dialogue:Melchett: Good man. Now, Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field. [they gather around a model of the battlefield]Blackadder: Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir? Darling: How can you possibly know that Blackadder? It's classified information. Blackadder: It's the same plan that we used last time, and the seventeen times before that.
Melchett: E-E-Exactly! And that is what so brilliant about it! We will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we have done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time! There is however one small problem. Blackadder: That everyone always gets slaughtered the first ten seconds.
Melchett: That's right! And Field Marshal Haig is worried that this may be depressing the men a tadge. So, he's looking to find a way to cheer them up. Blackadder: Well, his resignation and suicide would seem the obvious solution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxbzb8XXiGQ
Bad formatting, my bad!
Actually, the main cause of the crisis isn't "Keynesian Religion" but free market capitalism leading to over a quadrillion dollars in "shadow" derivatives.
Well put Comrade Monk, I'll nominate you for a seat on the politbureau, so you can give us your input on the next five year plan!
Denial is a lovely disease, as the man said in the film : Print the legend never the truth!
Talking of five year plans, that is exactly what the world needs today, not decisions based on quarterly reports and the illusory DJIA's daily knee jerks! We live in a world of paradigm change and it won't come on a day to day rationale basis. Whoever makes the decisions; private sector corporations or governments; the icebergs looming ahead like unleashed army of Nature's nemesis need a collective societal Will to charter a brand new course; even to go to the source which has destroyed the polar ice cap spawning this army of nature's trolls threating human civilization.
We all know that the private Oligarchy only functons on one principle : protecting its own 1% wealth. So it'll keep its head in the sand. That only leaves one power structure to plan our way out of this mess. The divine surprise would be to see the Oligarchs cut and run from current paradigm which they have spawned by corrupting their crony politicians. But that would be a cultural revolution to make CHina's Deng Xiao Ping about-turn look like a storm in a tea cup!
Comrade Oligarch needs to change his looking glass lens on ship "human endeavour"!
THe soution has to be born from confronting the problem in the eye of the storm. CHarybdis calls Scylla and the boat has to go through that narrow passage. That is the sense of our voyage. Strap yourselves to the mast now! No turning back!
If the U.S. had "free market capitalism" there would have been no need for bailouts therefore there would be presently no Vampire Squid or JP Morgan either, they would have crashed and burned on Burry's big short.
financial war in peace times is a longer haul than a hot war!
THe cold war lasted 45 years! The world financial war will last as long by the looks of it.
See the solution around 2050! All those who were responsible for it and all those others like us will be dead by then.
On a long enuff time line...
But Krugman says, and will continue to say, it's not enough.
He's just following his illogic to its natural conclusions. War is Krugman's Broken Window Fallacy writ large.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QG4jhlPLVVs#!
"no shattered towns and cities, no casualty lists in the papers and no “we regret to inform you” telegrams being delivered. The carnage is real but it is invisible. No lives have been lost."
Not so, there is no dichotomy between economic devastation and devastation caused by war. The results are the same just the means are different... for now. There is plenty of empirical evidence similar to war across America, shattered towns, plenty of those with high foreclosures, casualty lists, just look at the reduced quality in medical care, higher medical insurance premiums etc.. even the current warmongering in foreign theaters is debt based financed. No, its not invisible if you look. If anything all the economic and the attending physical devastation caused by the bankster/government cabal are just precursors to a full scale conflict.
So, what is your idea, Mr. Tyler Durden ?
1) Did you ever read about J.B Say ? If he is wrong (and he was), there is no solution. But i know, nobody will understand this.
2) Keynesians are not the problem, the problem is : There IS No Solution ! Keynesians castrated marxists.
Capitalism is doomed ; never worked.
You ever write as if there would be another way, but there isn't.
No lives lost?!! Keep an eye out on the thousands w/fresh degrees and debt that will last a lifetime at the deflated wages we all soon be forced to accept. Remember, the bankster's paid to have the bankruptcy rules revised to ensure repayment of the new types of debt they were about to foist upon us. Or, how about those of us who saw our 401/Roths all but eliminated, while we wrestled w/our "financial planners" in a vain attempt to stop the drainage. Tell that to folks like my friend, who tried to get her savings out of a money market account, only to find it frozen to the account holder, but not to the account "manager" who needed the funds to cover their "losses".
No-one was killed, but certainly lost were decades of hard work to build savings, which, if it was not disappeared, was inflated into nothing, years of study to now be informed that their skills are now "mismatched", so please start over, and, last, but certainly not least, those who chose a trade, had our meager savings disapated, and now are being told to plan on working till we die, because the funds we have been placing over a third of our paychecks into, are about to be curtailed.
No. We weren't killed. That would have been too humane, and we wouldn't be around to gloat over, and be targets for pseudo-slave abuse.
It can't be capitalism because there is no failure. That’s like Christianity with out Christ.
Its plain old fascism
Luigi Zingales sums this up on Bloomberg 3.30 mins in. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/economic-edge-capitalism-for-the-people-zR0diALVQq67Od_vSpNZNA.html
When politics analysis takes over from credit analysis for determining investments, you’ve already thrown normal markets right out the window.
That is exactly what we have.
Secular humanism?
Get out of here. Where is the militarism? Racialism? Social conservatiism? Dictatorship? In short, where is Mussolini's Italy? You can't have fascists who call for immigration, embrace multiculturalism, allow indiscriminate abortion, let pornography be broadcast on priem time television, legalise same-sex marriages and so forth. Stop misusing the word fascism.
You might want to check the word "Corporatism".
no, I agree with Lebensphilosoph. what we have now is a corrupt system (I'll leave the labels out), and fascism could be hailed back as a solution. I hope not, nevertheless IMHO he is right.
Ok, I'll bite. Let me play devil's advocate:
Let's see:
1) Militarism. Well, the U.S. is the most militaristic western nation, bar none. The most obscene part of this is the uncritical glorification of its army, which to anyone who has studied history is very concerning.
2) Racialism. Again, the U.S. is the most racially aware and racially divided western country. It has been suppressed, but it's there. And versus the foreign "other"? Almost as bad as Germany (or Japan, if one considers it a western nation).
3) Social conservatism. You've got to be kidding me. Only an American would think the U.S. isn't again if not the most conservative, at least one of the most conservative nations in the West.
4) Dictatorship. First of all, Hitler won his election fair and square. But even the question of whether the U.S. is a true democracy, is, at the very least, debatable.
I added:
5) Corporatism (actually today morphed into absolute corporatocracy in the U.S.). Enough said.
His mistake is the very common one of forgetting that standards change as time progresses. Thus, one shouldn't compare for example the social conservatism of the U.S. with a country's 80 years ago, but to compare it with the western zeitgeist today. Obviously, if one were to compare even fascist Italy's social conservatism with the social conservatism of say Britain's in the 1830s, it would suddenly look progressive.
The only crucial difference is the multicultural part of the U.S.
Still, the U.S is in a pre-fascist state at the moment. But by the looks of it, it might very well end up there. In a more modern version, of course. Remember that the legal framework through executive overreach has already been set, with suspension of habeas corpus and due process, massive surveillance without a court order and so on for reasons of "national security". This is actually the most crucial aspect.
you had me with "pre-fascist", there I can agree. let's see: 1. Militarism, ok. 2. Racialism - there the "liberal forces" seem having the upper hand. 3. Social Conservativism - idem. 4. Dictatorship - I think I'll leave that out as irrelevant how power is achieved.
Corporativism: in this current setup as seen in the US, it's private shareholder megacorporations that own the government. I think this is where the most important difference is. In a fascist state, corporativism means they are told what to do by the government, toghether with the workforce.
In a way, this is still visible in Germany, where corporations, trade unions and politicians craft together long-term industrial plans, a kind of benign corporativism. Similar vestigial corporative manners can be seen in France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, etc.
Re WW1 Generals
Seems to me that the most humane and moral course of action would have been to arrest those WW1 Generals & military Brass - along with their puppet masters - have them march across no-mans-land into the hail of bullets, and then, when the last of them had been dispatched, call an immediate halt to their criminal enterprise.
Failing that, it would have been the sane thing to do to disavow their "game" and walk-away from their meat-grinder.
.... .... ....
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Keynesian economics is just a rational for politicians to "Borrow and Spend" - in other words a justification overspending.
Sort of like an alcoholic citing medical studies that claim the drinking a glass of red wine a day is good for your health. If a little is good, more is better - why not drink a whole botlle, or two bottles? Or a bottle of vodka? Make that a quart!
This is W. C. Fields economics, not Keynesian economics.
GE and capture: don't look or read if you think this is a free market and/or you see all the faults as a result of our free market..this example might hurt your world view:
GE makes energy saving light bulb. how does it market it.. by having government outlaw the old tech light bulb, not by selling the benefits of it's new light bulb to the public.
do you get it, no I thought not.
So when I get a 250K mortgage that money is not really there except digitally when the sellers get the check?? I wonder how a bank can afford to tie up 250K for 30 years. If indeed in the last 3 years the 2 trillion printed into existence from thin air then my home is literally worth 125 yet I still owe 250. Or, and I may well be, simply missing something here. Not an investment or real estate guy.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
– Albert Einstein
I thought it was Bill Buckner ?!?!?!?!?