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Guest Post: Horrible Bosses, Pitchforks & Torches
Submitted by D. Sherman Okst of Financial Sense
Horrible Bosses, Pitchforks & Torches
If you haven’t seen the movie “Horrible Bosses” I’d recommend that you do. Please see it. Go enjoy yourself. As bad as things are getting it is incredible to realize that we can still laugh.
And trust me, you’ll laugh hard at this movie.
When I left the theater with my wife, I realized why it was that movie theaters did well in the last Great Depression. For an hour and forty minutes we escaped all the negativity that has crept into this world. It had a long lasting effect. For at least a week I was in a good mood.
The movie “Horrible Bosses” is comprised of a few character types: The ‘Psycho’, the ‘Maneater’ and the ‘Tool.’ Three friends come to the realization that their lives are miserable because of them. They like their jobs, they hate their bosses.
One friend, Dale used a playground, near the bar he frequented, as a late night urinal. He was arrested for indecent exposure. This got him the tile of "registered sex offender"—for what he claims was entrapment, (putting a playground adjacent to a bar). The irony is that his boss, Dr. Julia is a ‘manteater,’ the one the cops should have arrested. Bottom line—he’s not marketable.
Then we have Dave who works for a financial psycho who threatens to expose him to future employers for having a drinking problem—a problem that he really doesn’t have. Another non-marketable, stuck in his job for life worker.
Friend number three is Kurt. The owner of Kurt’s place of employment dies suddenly. This leaves the owners kid, ‘Bobby-the-Tool-Coke-Head’ as Kurt’s new boss. With the economy being what it isn’t, Kurt is also stuck at his job.
So the three come to the realization that their lives can only get better if they each kill their friend's boss. They hire MF Jones as their murder consultant . He got the name MF because when he was a kid he stole from his mother's purse and it really “set her back.”
The Psychopaths Have Crossed the Line
As I knock out my book “Where Psychopaths & Economics Meet,” I’ve resolved myself to not write “too many” articles. But, Gerald Celente is one of us. He’s one of the economic bloggers. One of the good guys. The ones out there reading good and spreading good in a world ruled by evil.
Our world has been taken over by three bad bosses: Political Capture, Economic Capture and Mainstream Media Capture. A sequel to "Horrible Bosses" is about to be written. Sadly I don't think it'll be a comedy.
A depression created by psychopaths.
I was just a college drop-in. My wife just got her degree. Twelve years of slogging through classes. I read most of her books along the way. When I wasn't tutoring her in computer programming she was teaching me. I don’t recall the philosopher, but one said something to the effect: “Names aren’t coincidental.” When the Madoff scandal broke we laughed about his name, “made-off,” as in I made-off with your money. As my favorite author, the late Kurt Vonnegut would say, “someone should look into this.”
Celente got taken by MF Global. When I told my wife the story over coffee this morning she laughingly said, “MF as in Mother-F(again, I’ll let you fill in the blanks here)r Global. Hey, just like the movie “Horrible Bosses” and MotherF(ehem)r Jones.” Even the name Jon is a tipoff. I don’t trust people who spell their names like they are better than the rest of us, and Corzine I first misread as Conman somehow.
Can you spot the two criminals in this lineup?
So here we have 7,000 clients who got MF’d out of some $800,000,000 and Jon is walking around a free man. Let’s not mince words here, Jon is Obama’s top Wall Street Fundraiser.
Pitchforks and Torches
In 2004 we downsized. By 2007 our new house was complete. We literally built it ourselves. I didn’t use the cheapest materials. The house is very sound, 2 x 6 walls, heavier sheathing on the roof, the silent floor system, low-e windows, stone and HardiPlank all on top of a poured concrete foundation.
The circa mid-2000 appliances we got are made like junk—and we didn’t buy the cheapest ones. I’ve decided not to let this “slip.” My Jihad these days has been accountability.
The well guy put a computer in that sounds like one of the turbine engines on the planes I used to fly. He claims he did this to save me $300 dollars in electrical wire. I’m still trying to get his Bernanke math. I paid $2,000 bucks for this computer to save $300 bucks in wire. I must be a moron because losing $1,700 dollars doesn’t sound like a savings to me? Of course this computer turns the 3.5 horsepower, electric power guzzling, well pump on every time we so much as flush a toilet, and pushing age 50 we seem to do that a lot more often. As a result our downsizing to a smaller home hasn’t downsized our electric bill. But I "saved" 300 bucks in wire. I've got that going for me.
The stove has a broken knob. Turning on various burners is like playing musical knobs. Puts my wife in a great mood.
The oven door has to be screwed back together, it only separates when the oven is hot. Using a screwdriver with oven mitts on drives me bat(ehm) crazy.
The dishwasher racks had their track “stoppers” fall out, so now the racks fall out the tracks and we get to pick up glass.
The ice-maker in the fridge has to be manually turned on and off or ice goes all over the packed freezer. When we use the door dispenser we get more ice on the floor than in our glasses.
The gate opener outside has been replaced 12 times, and is ready again for a new computer board. The intercom by the gate stopped working — I’m not replacing it, I’m not social. It’s one reason I have an 8,400 volt electric fence, the other is I like keeping my garbage outside and I don’t like bears messing with it or eating it. Some poor son of a gun out west shot a bear because he was worried about his kids outside and the police charged him.
More governmental insanity that we pay for.
There is something in Celente’s voice. I’m not the only one who hears it. It reminds me of flying in weather, the times we got so close while deviating between cells that I could hear the thunder over the planes engines. Kunstler hears it too. Jim—another good guy—wrote today about Celente’s getting taken by MF Global, “I heard him [Gerald] fulminating over it on a podcast and he is not somebody I’d want to be on the bad side of.” Last week the wood stove manufacturer’s CEO and president heard my thunder. This week they buy their stove back and we put a more expensive one in.
I’m done dealing with morons and through with being robbed blind.
It's bad enough inflation rips us off, but to be forced into buying lifetime warrenties which cost as much as the product that you're buying, or having to replace what you just bought a year ago is criminal.
Things should not come down to pitchforks and torches—but they are quickly coming to that. It isn’t a pleasant fix but when the authorities think that it is permissible for someone to steal $800 million from 7,000 customers and nothing is immediatly done about it then it is proof that they have—once again—failed us. If you can backstop Wall Street you better backstop those ripped off by them—and this time, go liquidate their assets to pay it back. K-Street of course won’t tolerate that, and that’s who really pays our horrible bosses we call politicians. (Ron Paul and a few other good eggs excluded).
What happened to Celente and 7,000 other Celentes is no different from the cops who beat the ex-war vet protester until his spleen ruptured; or pepper sprayed those two little girls; or shot a kid in the head with teargas canisters and then, while lying helplessly on the ground in a puddle of his own blood, proceed to lob a flash grenade at him and those helping him. Sick!
Like I told the stove compnay—Nice job champs!
Americans have been very tolerant. We’ve handed money over for Wall Street bonuses rewarding the psychopaths who blew up our economy and created 23.9% unemployment (the real undistorted employment rate). We’ve watched silently as Bernanke lied to us about the banks being fixed—as if we’re too stupid to know that FASB is now just legalized Enron accounting. We’ve rolled our eyes and bitten our tongues when some of the psychopaths later professed to be, “Doing God’s work." We’ve watched our kids get molested by perverts hired off adds on pizza boxes, had our wives breasts exposed during these idiotic searches and ourselves been exposed to radiation while in naked body scanners that could be used in the oncology departments of hospitals.
I seriously suspect that people have had enough and that it won’t be long before they break out the pitchforks and torches. Throughout history we’ve read about times when citizens were forced to resort to violence in order to restore law and order.
Ironic—if you really think about it.
I seriously suspect we are about to witness this first hand—pitchforks and torches.
Right now I’m just entirely ecstatic that my name isn’t Jon Corzine. Like Kuntsler says, ‘Celente isn’t someone that I’d want to be on the bad side of. If tomorrow I open up my RSS reader and see one of those 7,000 screwed by Mother F#r Global holding a pitchfork with Corzine’s head on it I won’t be surprised.'
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1
L0L!!! now i hafta read the article!
It's worth a read, I enjoyed it, if only because it reminds me of so much I endure myself...
One day guys like this will reflect on the simple truth that the only reason he has an intercom on the gate is because of the system of credit, and that inevitably these systems MUST implode and that all that we see today is a cycle.
Knowing where we are in this cycle is the key to making money but even when we go back to a gold standard, and go back we will, the clock will begin ticking for when we eventually go back to another system of credit with its associated good living, cheap cars and expensive houses before it all implodes again and everyone is once again outraged at the banks that made it possible by loaning us the new money and taken completely by surprise by it all, all over again.
Knowing where we are in the cycle is the key to a good life or bad...
entire article is bourgeois crap welcome to the fucking real i'm saddened your fucking intercom ain't working no more. YAWN.
I think we're the intallekcthual eeleete.
I'm the intallekCthulhu 31337.
America is filled with dumb fux who love TV and the daily brainwashing. Even plenty of idiots on ZH watch TV and enable and enpower their overlords by watching. They are pathetic as the AH's who call Cramer and say booyah. F TV and the morons who watch it.
Maybe after football season some of the fat asses may think about doing something for a nano second. So many dumb fu*ktards think college ball is more important than liberty. A nation of retards.
dude final four? march madness? hello?
The whole world has become a daisy chain of schnorrers and schmiklers. All those hundreds of trillions of dollars in credit default swap insurance (ha!). Worthless and pointless, because now that a Greek default of at least 50 percent, officially, has failed to ignite a payout, then no default will. Instead, you'll just get cascades of un-hedged defaults. All the lawyers who ever lived could litigate until the sun turns into a red dwarf and they will never resolve these swindles, and the money represented in them will be so far gone that not even Ray Kurzweil in full Singularity mode will encounter a trace of it in his eternal travels through a zillion parallel universes.
lmao
http://portlanddailysun.me/node/30228/
schnorrers and swastikas?
don't confuse the link with the source. check the citation.
Good points in general, however, I'd like to add that I'm tired of well off f*ckers pretending like they are the same as the average guy. This article remind me of this guy I once knew that used to complain all the time about his broken Rolex. YOU HAVE A F*CKING ROLEX, SHUT THE F*CK UP.
I will say good on ya for not wanting to take the crap anymore, but fyi, if it comes down to violence the unclean masses are probably going to the houses with the f*cking driveway intercoms first.
from history the masses destroy their own neighborhoods first. it is, imo, a good thing that the destruction by the financial oligarchy has gone up the food chain with mf global. these people are not as impotent nor are they as used to being ass fucked as "the masses". perhaps a radicalizing moment. or at least new hard core ron paul supporters.
Yeah, current-generation appliances suck. I rented a room from a complete asshole last year while finishing school. His 2yo microwave ("Made in China") burned out, so I got mine out of storage and we used that for the rest of the year. Mine is about 15 years old and made in the USA with Japanese capacitors. It'll still be going for years. The son of a bitch tried to steal it when I moved out.
Hoo boy… nice rant .
Appliances? My three month old Maytags.. Like almost every other appliance I have purchased in the last dozen years - pure freaking tin junk. No way they will last 15 years like the last ones.. lucky to see over 5 years. And designed by morons for morons. They take forever, they lock you out, they won’t let you soak stuff, they won’t fill all the way, they can’t be reset and restart a cycle… I could go on.
To me, they are an analog of what this whole low quality, over tinkered with country and society has become.
FYI.. Go and buy TSP at the home improvement store.. 4 lb box for about 10 bucks..
Put 2 ounces in a laundry load… AND in each dishwasher load.
Presto! The phosphates the government took out of your cleaning powders are back..
Dishes and laundry are clean again. The dishes especially.
Better living through chemistry.
Super capacity Kenmore washer and dryer, circa 1990, still running flawlessly. Bitchezzz American made firearms are still very reliable. I don't buy no junk. pardon my grammar
That's not very 'globalised' is it?
I thought the idea was to make stuff with a 13 month lifespan and a 12 month warranty so that we could all keep on buying, creating all these jobs and well, never have anything that really worked...
The real reason was to transfer most of our wealth and prosperity to the developing world and enough of it over to the banking elite to keep them fat and in control.
The real reason was to avoid the overpaid unproductive unionized american worker. capital finds its best and most efficient use.
capital certainly found its best and most efficient use in 2007-9. ditto the leveraged buyout and dot com booms.
those overpaid unproductive unionized american workers built the u.s. that coasted (down) for half a century to our present dystopia.
"capital finds its best and most efficient use."
Holy jesus lol. And, he said it in an article about MF Global!
Comedy gold. Well done sir.
I think the garbage men are behind this one...
Not the garbage men you probably think, but you are correct. When I bought my house 7 years ago, I next bought a set of 1970s era Maytag washer and dryer which had undoubtedly been traded in after one of them broke, and then repaired for resale. I gave $150 for the pair. In the last 7 years, I have put a new belt in the washer and run a new exhaust pipe under the house for the dryer.
You can't buy a good washing machine anymore and I would have kept the old Maytags (circa 1992) except that you can't rely on parts being reasonably priced or available anymore. I would have replaced the seals myself (second time in 18 years) for 100 bucks, but when the trans or timer would go again, it wouldn't be worth the two or three hundred or more even if you could get the parts. It was a shame to send the old ones to scrap.
And yes., no problems with any of my Colts, Remingtons, Winchesters or Henry's.
And I suppose I can't complain about any of the Berettas or Glocks either.
Kenmore is or was Whirlpool. They may still be Whirlpool made.
Kenmore is actually many different brands that change as business dictates (some low bidder, some certain innovation or features Sears wants, etc.). Sears picks the products they want in their lineup and contracts to have the Kenmore badge put on them. Kenmore doesn't make s, it is a branding thing.
Only problem with said reliable 1990 washer is it probably uses 45 gal water per. Just sayin'....
This is fight club; no need for phony politeness here. If you disagree, just say it. The 70's Maytag washer referenced above has a slide switch (rather than some flimsily soldered computer control board) to select how much water you want to use. I doubt the microcontroller chips typically used in these type control boards are much more accurate gallon-wise than the slide switch when new, and when their BGA soldering job breaks loose from vibration, the device stops working, while the slide switch just allows a bit looser tolerance from new.
I drive a 1994 Chevy G20 Van that gets 12 mpg, but I paid $1000 for it 3 years ago and have spent about $350 in repairs and used tires. Americans used to make good vehicles. I will buy another old, used car when this one rusts out (it's a problem here in Upstate NY).
My fridge is probably 40 years old. Still works well enough, have to thaw it out and drain it every eight months or so, but I'm not paying well over $500 for some new piece of crap. I'll buy used when the time comes.
The washer and dryer are about as old as the fridge. Washer works fine, but the dryer is gas and not very efficient, so it just sits. Sunshine and wind work great for drying clothes on a line.
My house was built in 1920. Actually one of the newer ones on my street. Some built in the 1800s still standing and looking good. Lathe, mortar, brick, sturdy foundations, old school has never looked so good.
Now if I can just get the property tax Nazis to lower my assessment again (got it down to $82K from $124K) and keep making money doing anything (self-employment has its benefits, but vacations are not one of them), I may survive the impending collapse of globalization, which has quickly become a four-letter word to many.
Older is better. Just ask any babe who's had a young stud and an older gentleman. Older guys (40-65) who stay in shape and don't need Viagra can bang for days. Just ask my three girlfriends. LMAO
One of the few still made in teh USA are expensive Electrolux (Swedish company) made in Minnesota. They have breaks for islamic prayers because the factory is probably filled with Somalis. Sweden's own Malmo in Minnesota. I would rather give my money to South Koreans.
I bought a small back up haier Chinese shitbox refrig. It broke in less than 2 years. Whirlpool's stuff is still pretty good but most of it is made in Mexico. A think a few Bosch things are made in Tenn.
The problem with anything run by microchips is that the remaining American engineers are tasked with reducing cost. They try to leave out components from a reference design which can, for example, prevent circuit damage. One large manufacturer a few years ago left out a diode from a reference design to save about a nickel a board. The problem they discovered is that any time anyone tried to connect to this board in the factory to see why it had stopped, the entire onboard graphics circuit blew. They corrected this issue going forward, but left the shipped product in the field. If you had this product and tried to hot plug it five years after you bought it; sorry, it's dead. Your warranty expired a year ago according to our records. I can connect you to sales...... That's why the huge corps hire MBA's; they start off constructing price/benefit curves to try to identify the point where the warranty costs are less than the cost of a recall of shipped product. If they can consistently make the curve look attractive enough to leave the product in the field, they get kicked up to management. This is representative of damn near every company in the S&P.
The takeaway here is BIG is the enemy, folks. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act wasn't hatched by a half dozen crackers that got run out of Florida after the Civil War.
Never buy the appliances with the chips in them. Never. Goddamned computer chips don't make everything better.
Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
Narrator: A major one.
FYI - Looking at Fridges recently I noted that Home depot carries Amana that are US made.
This is gonna get fun!
No my friend I don't think it's gonna get fun. I think it's gonna get bloody and ugly. I think there is going to be a lot of people,who otherwise shouldn't , get caught up in this and die. I believe it's building up and we can come out better on the other end, but it will not be fun.
German appliances are fantastic, and oh so user friendly. But you guys in the US run an empire, so you get restaurant with a view food. Just the facts, ma'am. Some cultures are actually committed to creating stuff people want. Their car companies don't go bankrupt, which is one reason why empire power falls so hard.
There's an empire?
Yup! Empire of the Sinking Sun....Look out the window.
Maybe no one told you but you can buy Bosch and Miele stuff in the USA. I think there are other German brands we can get too.
I agree that the German autoworker do not run off to 7-11 at lunch time to drink two quarter iof malt liqour and smoke dope like the UAW union scum at Chrysler and GM. I think Ford does not put up with crap like that. Chrysler stuff is shit.
In 2010 the Chrysler UAW goons got caught and again in 2011. Bailed out by the muslim. Same factory of UAW vermin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YaQCsrDfdY
Freddie, except for Apple and bombs, American made stuff just doesn't compete. I live in Canada. I've owned American cars, American appliances, American electronics. I've talked with people about American service providers. Absolutely frustrating experiences generally and across the board. I never buy American now for this reason. Your companies just don't care. They really really don't. The result is WalMart and Enron.
You're kidding right? Half the world can't seem to get away from top quality American goods which only work too well be it Stealth bombers, cruise missiles or just plain 9mm ammo. How often is it you hear of American aircraft carriers sinking? Never.
And American money is still good isn't it?
Top job if you ask me...
Mill stuff generally very good, consumer stuff almost always crap.
Shoot the f**ing bean counters, put the engineers back in charge.
If I can't understand it and repair it, I will not buy it.
My American Deluxe Fender Stratocaster kicks ASS, bitchez!!!
My American Ford sucked ass.
Why don't you girls go to the mall and have a tea together; it is a more appropriate site for you consumer's conversation and take your wives with you, by the way. They could use a night on the town om
Bought a bonza Bosch drill, l thought ...then found it was made in Hungary..Last Bosch product I ever buy...its all a huge con these days.
Meyle (there, fixed it for ya) is shit. Buy Mahle (filters), Lemfoerder, Boge, Febi-Bilstein and Mann. Bosch is still good shit although I would try to avoid the aftermarket stuff that they outsourced to China. Just to give credit where due, I picked up a Bosch cordless recip saw on eBay for $15 and it will hang with my corded Milwaukee. Don't know for how long, but from the looks, it has a few miles on it already. I already cut and chopped a 20' tree with it.
The Pitchforks and torches are coming out.
The 99% are made of:
republicans
democrats
independents
libertarians
undecideds
anarchists
In the meantime you have
FOX News,
CNN,
MSNBC,
..and just about every other MSM outlet including both political parties doing their best to discredit and destroy any opposing group, be they #ows or any other. Fox News makes me laugh every time they put some republican talking head on that attempts to paint them as opposition party members.
The problem is, as unemployment and poverty continue to climb, the numbers of disenfranchised from ALL political parties will only get bigger , and none of those clowns have seemed to figure that out yet.
say the c word
here is the 99.99999%
1. ali fedotowsky 2. verlander 3. super committee 4. cutler 5. polio 6. walmart black friday ad 2011 7. grover norquist 8. uc davis 9. sweet potato recipes 10. dancing with the stars results 11. justin verlander 12. jay cutler 13. pecan pie recipe 14. christina aguilera 15. padma lakshmi 16. green bean casserole recipe 17. turkey recipes 18. natalie wood 19. duke basketball 20. how to cook a turkeyOn Monday mornings, trends are nothing but football. A Wall Street Journal article just shot rhodium up to #2, behind more college football
C word is Chickenshit like the Conversations on Consumerism
know what I mean?
or did you mean, 'COMMIES'?
It is time for this oldman to love it or leave it Ciao, ya'll om
Just a WAG, but what gandlgand is showing you are the latest results of the 'average' american's google searches. These are the people you are counting on to 'rise up' and 'do something' about the PTB. IOW, they will loose in an IQ contest against a lawn full of geckos. The really sad thing is I live here.
OM, sad to say it's time to decide whether to go down trying to save the ship or to bail to sunnier coasts. If you are a more recent arrival, it should be a simple economic matter. I suspect you are more like me with family which has been here for several hundred years. That brings a lot more baggage into the discussion.
Thanks zhandax,
Yeah, almost four hundred years here
well, tonight 'here' is Quito where I have returned to in order to re-group and regain some sanity after 6 months amongst 'my people'. Three or four months here in the forest of the clouds and some time on the coast---with friends and others who always find time to stop and say hello or take an hour for a coffee and conversation, blah, blah, blah,-----you probably remember that it was like this in the US also until around 1980----changed now---even when out of work or in the street--cell phones and obligations demand full and total attention of all.
No time for 'do-ing nothing' which this oldman has always made time for----things change, places change, people change, but this oldman remains stuck in a timeless space where everything is possible and 'do-ing nothing' is quite a formidable program of doing.
I bailed out twenty years ago, but these kids in the street tempt me to stay and stand with them----haven't decided anything yet except to support in whatever way I can the resistance. Most are just talking their same old shit here at ZH----sorry to say, but there are real people here also and I know from certain comments and a sufficient number of green to the most wildly outrageous things I write that there are a lot like me, and I am certain that they are actively supporting 'our troops' in the street, these ragged, wet, and cold people who believe more strongly than this weak-faithed oldman.
Thanks again for your comment and ther same to other 'like-minded' oldpeople and especially the young people showing how a people might come together and pasas time together working without agression and violence to form a consensus of opinion for the rest of us to view---actually, this is what I find most exciting and different this time; this is what seems most 'hopeful' and is not hopium as much as the desire to find a way that capitalism can escape the clutches of the brainless scum that have lead it into the current morass and collapse. Capitalism is not a bad way to go as long as every member of a society shares in the goods and services produced--------------not many understand this with much profundity. This exactly what is so sad--sad beyond the anger and frustration of my rants
sad,sad,sad om
But I digress.
'Pitchforks and Torches' is a bit too rococo. In fact it reminds me of the Frankenstein scene where the night mob approaches the good doctor's manse. Well, we have no Frankensteins and certainly no Transylvanias (other than parts of Louisiana) so hense the rococonism. Now though the term signifies a well-worn image of unrestful enraged masses, modernly it really should be updated to something like, 'AR-15's and Flamethrowers'.
Such a new term much more in concert with an I-Pad and Prius generation in my estimation, would better instill in the modern brain the equivalent image of yore's favorite expressionary implements displaying societal disagreement between Lord and Serf.
I leave you thus with for your inconsideration......
"They better better watch their asses or out come the AR-15's and Flamethrowers. Mudderfuckers."
I got the same image in my head too. But they wont even need the torches. They will burn the money when they stop or are unable to participate in the engine of the US economy, and it will grind to a crawl. Then comes the panic from Washington, when in that moment they discover they really have become Greece.
It will be AR15s and AK47s. Not pitchforks. Not torches. The next time you're in a crowd of people look at the person in front of you, to the left of you, to the right of you. One of those 3 individuals owns a gun (statistically speaking). Half of all households own a gun. The ownership rate among Democrats and women is spiking. This is from a recent poll.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx
Combine a high rate of gun ownership, >1 million returning Iraq/Afghanistan veterans (faced with high unemployment and mental health issues), police brutality, the fucked up deteriorating economy and resultant anger and frustration, and healthy dose of the sheer stupidity of the brainwashed/willfully ignorant masses/sheep and it's clear there is a recipe for disaster brewing. So, the question is, when the SHTF what do you got?
There are a lot of guns in the US. Comparing the US to the PIIGS countries we have 6X the rate of ownership and 19X the total number of firearms. If it gets bad on the streets in the PIIGS it cold potentially get a lot worse here. There are 270,000,000 guns in the US. Think about it.
Most of those guns won't matter. Those that will: owned by urban ethnic gangs, and suburban/rural White NRA/GOA implicit militias. Everyone else will be hiding under their beds, assuming the fetal position, or lining up at the FEMA camps for their lump of gubmint cheese.
Had that cheese in the 50s. Kinda like melted urethane sealant. The canned peanut butter was pretty good. I'll be lined up for everything so that no one suspects me of hoarding. If you eat that cheese, you'd best stock up on a laxative.
Plus the guns in police / DHS arsenals and those confiscated from those who give them up for a can of soylent green. The pigs will be the worst gangs around. Carefully selected for sociopathy and paid with toilet paper, but with good infrastructure and the remnants of the law and people's conditioning to back them up. It will all come down to veterans and militias vs. local pigs and Blackwater death squads. But still, I think the vets will win- the cops are real tough when they get to bludgeon hippies, pepper-spray grannies and shoot golden retrievers but they will melt away when the vets rise up.
Yup!put my money on a 'Cranky Yankee any day, a pissed off civvy with a full mag or six, blue uniforms are not bullet proof.
Can someone explain how this is NOT going to degenerate into race/tribe wars?
ipadism replaces reccocoism I LOVE IT!
....but also..there will never be a popular revolution in the continetal us, 311 million people, no way...
...there's a point at which qualitative or materialist viewpoints break down under [real] quantitative analysis AND viceversa....
Hey ilene?
Ilene?
Hello?
ilene?
Fucking scammers.
You perpetually pathetic useful idiots fall for everything BUT the truth.
No wonder we are all so screwed.
Thanks.
Good job being an idiot.
What is truth?
5 stars... bitchez!
And that is why I will be voting Tea Party Rebublican until the cows come home... bitchezzzz :)
I posted this before, so apologies for the dupe.
The orginal Honda fuel pump almost 1/4MM miles.. the Chink replacement - 1/4 mile. No more chinese parts in my ride.
Most Americans are too fat to even pick up a pitch fork.
And if it did not have a plug on it and an or an antena,they wouldn't even know how to use it.
Where is Jon Corzine ?
Why have no CRIMINAL charges been laid against him or MF ?
And WHY no pitch forks ?
The Goldman Connection .or what...???
Charges?
I wonder how much Corzine knows... One of these days they are going to charge somebody like Corzine. It will be like lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby will get to him before he can implicate.........
I so hope this works like classic phase-change... everything changes overnight. Boy would I love to see 100,000,000 berzerko armed americans running around looking for every politician and every banksters and every executive of every large corporation and shooting on sight. Yes, I know it is sad there would be a bit of collatoral damage. So be it. Otherwise the entire planet and the human race are finished.
The time to lock and load is at hand.
‘So be it’ to collateral damage? Sounds positively Dubya-like! If that constitutes the moral high ground, then we would be just changing the devil we know for one we don’t. Perhaps in a fair Universe those who would be collateral damage will be those who find it acceptable, plus anyone they hold dear.
I remember a social uprising a few years back. There was a little bloodlust in the crowd. A young girl was accused of being the daughter of an official. The crowd pounced, and with a rusty machete separated her head from her shoulders and stuck it on the post of a fence in a park. Just after the grotesque face took its place on public display, somebody said, "whoops, wrong girl".
Here's the problem with your sentiments (which I understand). If you let predators do anything they wish to you, and you never stop them, the total damage to "regular folks" and "good folks" will be VASTLY greater than the damage done by the collatoral damage from focused attacks on the predators. So you only have a choice. You do not have available any scenario that doesn't involve damage. You only get to choose to let mankind suffer PERMANENT abuse, misery, death and enslavement at the hands of the predators-that-be and predator-class (probably including wholesale murder of a vast majority of the population of earth)... or eliminate the predators, suffer vastly less damage, and have a future for mankind.
I am very, very, painfully aware how trivially the predators-that-be and predator-class treat the issue of "collatoral damage" when they drop bombs on other countries, and recently when they deal with protests and other militarized police actions that are on a steep rise. That is not really comparable with what I mean by collatoral damage. We have no interest in harming good people or random people, in fact we would hate that. In contrast, they love harming good people and random people, and do so with reckless abandon. They are not comparable.
And don't forget. Anyone who goes after predators is BY FAR in the greatest danger of all, even though they're taking upon the risk to make life better, safer and happier for the vast majority who do nothing. Most "collatoral damage" will happen to those who deserve the most praise.
Do you advise we all stand by and let the move vile, evil, rotten predators destroy everything and everyone good in the species? That's your only alternative.
OMG I laughed my a$$ off!!!! Thank you for this...or maybe it had to do wtih all the rum and cokes I have been drinking. Either way this was some funny $hI^
Time to get mid-mother-F*$Kn-EVIL on them.
Come on...Americans believe it is great that people get rich beyond believe. It is called the American Dream. Collateral damage (fraud, hunger, war, poverty) is just one of those things and really OK.
Admit it, you admire Corzine. You pity yourself you are not him. He made it. You didn't.
Americans rather go into a collective depression realising they remain poor than give up the raison d'etre of their existence: to get rich as quick as possible, no matter what.
I think you need to research the difference between zero-sum and non-zero-sum economic transactions.
EVERYONE wants to have a better standard of living. Only a very few people knowingly want to do it at other people's expense.
Hollywood movies today have no connection to real life.
How do people sit through 90 minutes of such garbage?
I can barely stand a three minute trailor.
They are just plain stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I concur. And the remakes of old movies and television shows as if they were fantastic new blockbusters is pathetic, too.
As sad as it is, the last couple of 'movies' I've taken the wife out to, other than Avatar which we went to see due to the 3-D hype, have been essentially cartoons (like CGI Avatar).
And, being the early geezer I am, I can also ad a complaint about the music with every voice going through electronic autotune. Kids can't just sing anymore?
Better stop, I'm sounding like Grandpa Simpson.
Speaking of building homes and the quality or lack there of today’s products, I’ve got a few relics of the past that haven’t died just yet! My 50+ year old set of Black&Decker circular saws made in USA still out perform any of the crap you can purchase from home depot or lowe’s stores. Sometime in the 80’s I believe B&D’s quality went down the tubes as they ventured into the cheap appliances market with toasters, can openers and other kitchen crap. Losing market share in recent years to import tool manufactures has driven them invoke long standing bastard child DeWalt as the frontline commercial tool offering. Acquired in 1960 DeWalt had become known as a producer of flesh eating devices associated with industrial accidents hence the distancing of that brand name for flagship products. Incidentally B&D acquired industrial performer Porter-Cable in 2004 to round out the product line competing with import tools. Lesson learned was cutting quality diminished market share and diluted brand name recognition. While I doubt they will bring the Maytag Repairman out of cryogenic storage anytime soon it would be refreshing to see a return even on a small scale of quality USA manufacturing if supported by people willing to pay for it. After all buying quality is a lot like buying oats, it’s much cheaper once it’s been run through the horse!
The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
So, you guys are waiting for a revolution? If it wasn't so sad I would be rolling on the floor!
Read it from my dead black on white characters: There will never ever be another revolution in the USA. How can I be so sure? Well, simple. Dead simple. There is a certain minority that is complaining. Are they buying pitchforks 'n stuff? No. Hell! NO! They, of course wait for someone else to undertake the dirty work. You want to see where the American Revolution is? Look into a mirror. There it stands. Starring, knowing that NOTHING! EVER! will happen.
Oh, and all those 'others'? Well they are sheeple. What in Kangaroos name do you expect? They all 'baaaah' in support for the current System. And you honestly expect them to do ... what? Move their arses while American Idol, X Fucktor etc. is on TV?
You've got to be kidding me!
Now, do us all a favour. Next time you intend to write about revolutions and so, don't. Why? Because you wouldn't even know how to start one! And because it's embarrassing FOR YOU! Yes, you who reads this.
You would never ever start a revolution. Even if they searched your rectum at each entry of a Wal-Mart, at every bus station and at every upcoming check point in the streets.
Shut up! Because YOU WON'T DO ANYTHING about it!
Still not convinced? Well there once was a certain country in Europe that had those famous death camps. Did anyone revolt? No. A few assassination attempts on leaders but no, nothing major. The sad news is that as much as there won't be a revolution in the USA, a situation like during the 3rd Reich (yes, death camps and all) would be possible EVERYWHERE in the world today. Why?
Because YOU decide to stand there in front of your mirror, starring, knowing that nothing is ever going to happen.
"I've resolved myself…" Ouch, I hope it wasn't painful. Oh, yeah, this guy is going to make a bundle as an author. He can't punctuate, either.
Dear Heavenly Lord, if it isn't about financial sociopaths and psychopaths (say Mr. BIG AUTHOR MAN - can YOU tell the difference? No? I thought not), it's self-aggrandising prats who think they can sum up today's societital malaise and give us all the[ir] (crap) answers.
SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH
SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH .
Durden - you're fired! Get some in to replace you at once.
Pitchfoorks and torches!?!?! ..........sounds like 'domesitc terrorism'....... Homeland Security will protect us........ er... 'them' if nothing else, OWS has made THAT clear
I really love the post 9/11 mindset.... hypermilitsrized police (attacking citizens instead of protecting them), a slew of astoundingly Fascist sounding themes ('Homeleand Security' trillions spent on unCOnstitutional surveillance, the suspension of rights - all in the name of protecting the nation against a ragtag bunch of Islamic extremists - former tools opf the US against the evil Sovietds in Afghanistan...... ('blowback' understates this mess). Hell, the neocons ADMIT they used 9/11 to push through things that wer repeatedly voted down previously, things they NEVER would evendream of trying before.... fear, fear FEAR, FEAR!....
Madison nailed it. "When tyranny comes to these shores it will be in the guise of protecting us from a foreign enemy"
How the fuck did you ever put up with the FAA?
Narrative Time:
I will share with you an incredibly personal experience, which relates to many of the issues discussed on this website. The summer of my junior year (2008) had a drastic impact on my life. The foreclosure crisis caused my friend Frank's dad to loose his job as a mortgage broker. After that happened Frank's parents’ marriage fell apart. Frank's mother moved away and his dad moved in with his new girlfriend downtown. Frank was not finished with high school and didn’t want to have to go to a different school district. Their house was being foreclosure by the time the summer started. Frank, instead of moving in with his mom or dad was allowed to stay in the house alone for almost 6 months. His mother thought he was living with his dad and his dad just didn’t give a sh*t.
Our friends and I would always go over his foreclosed house and hang out. We were sixteen or seventeen years old, and were basically squatters. To avoid the details, the situation resulted in huge parties, drugs, fights, alcohol, police and social workers. (This was a ~250,000 dollar house in an affluent suburban neighborhood) Frank and I occasionally partook in the events but were usually spectators to the phenomenon. Frank is a brilliant kid, 4.3 GPA in high school and currently studying actuarial science at *SU. In the down time at the house, the situation spurred conversations about our lives and the world around us: what caused his dad to loose his job, why his home life fell apart, what the future would be like, what we wanted to do with our lives, what did the people around us view as important in their lives, how does your family shape you as a person, current events, politics, economics, history, etc. With the Internet and motivation anybody can find anything out.
During this time, he and I had many revelations about life. How is it that Eddie’s dad could profit off of giving loans to people he knew could not afford them? How he could have a “better” life (until the bubble burst) than a member of the working class. How tough economic times could rip a family apart. How kids are the most effected by family turbulence. How greed and the thought of “easy” money corrupts people. How underage drinking and drugs can severely reduce a person’s life prospects. How the government and Wall Street were so ignorant to the potential results of their actions or inactions. The more we discovered what the world was really like the more we would research and converse. We erased years of our public school “indoctrination” and started learning things that they don’t teach in school.
Put this into a perspective of a kid who grew up in post September 11th America. The major headlines in American history that my generation has been alive and politically conscious for are the September 11th attacks, useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the BP oil spill and the foreclosure/global financial crisis. This coupled with every mainstream media agency informing our generation that we are not going to be as prosperous as our parents makes for a generation of “lost” kids. We are burdened with college loans. We can’t find jobs. We have no “acceptable” options besides college. China owns our country. The income gap is widening. Poverty is on the rise. Institutionalized racism is alive and well. Our politicians are busy chasing money and fighting ideological battles instead solving our country’s problems.
We were once a great country but our place in the world is slipping as we encounter tough global competition. It is time for the Youth of America to put down their credit cards, spend no more than they earn, tighten their belts and work hard. We've been delt a sh*tty hand and have a lot of catching up to do...
Nice read, better than the drivel I wrote. You should write.
If people would do their due diligence, it would force quality to come back. My wife chides me for researching every purchase for months before buying. LG washer to replace a failed cheapo one put in by prior homeowner. No regrets. LG TVs - never had a problem. Sometimes you have to recognize that quality drfits. Dell used to make nice machines...no more. Who makes quality now? Apple, actually. You may scoff at it, and the prices may be high, but they deliver often, and usually back it up with good service. I could go on.
If we demand quality, as the author is advocating, we will restore that as a leading principle of business. I can't speak for the world of finance, where it seems to be accepted practice to steal your customer's money.
I think the author could have made his point with a better film to compare the increasing frustration and deterioration of living standards felt by most Americans,that movie being "Falling Down" starring Michael Douglas.
Hollywood saw all this coming years ago,it was made in 1993!!!.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_down
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106856/
D-Fens. One of my favorite movies. "Blast From the Past" also a good watch. Best.
"If tomorrow I open up my RSS reader and see one of those 7,000 screwed by Mother F#r Global holding a pitchfork with Corzine’s head on it I won’t be surprised."
Put that on Pay-Per-View and we'd have no damn crisis.
I've read "Ron Paul and a few other good ones" several times in the last few months. Who ARE these few others? Please start listing them. Fa faks sake.
"I’m done dealing with morons and through with being robbed blind."
LOL, absolutely! Nice change of pace humor, good article, thank you.
Went postal when the China-Made vacuum cleaner [It's CRAP] I was using could not pickup a small scrap of paper despite the fact that it was only six months old. The solution....
http://www.riccar.com/
Now, I can vacuum without my blood pressure shooting up into the stratosphere.....MADE IN THE USA!
Where this goes is pretty straightforward. When enough people are hurting (i.e. deprived of cheap entertainment, cheap fatty food, and cheap psychoactive drugs), then we see some real significant civil unrest. The one-two punch of economic depression followed by the inevitable fact of oil depletion almost guarantees this outcome over the next two decades. This used to result in war, however war, which used to be effective in combatting both social unrest and economic malaise, now exacerbates both.
At some point, corn-pone dictators in the thousands will emerge roachlike from the population. One or two such dictators will rise the the top. These dictators make sure th current government is removed from office with extreme predjudice. Possibly more than a few wall street execs too.
It was all avoidable. The rule of "Don't get too greedy" applies to Wall Street as surely as it does to the lowest level mafioso. Don't steal from your bosses, which, in the government's case are the American people. RealPolitik economics at its most basic. If Wall Street and the world's elite missed anything, it was this.
My guess is that it will once again be proven that Machiavelli was right that the "so called" leaders need to pay attention to keeping the people happy than keeping the oligarchy happy BECAUSE the hangers on have no loyalty under any circumstances and because there are a limited number can always be bought with money, title and other B/S, while the people cannot be bought.
I am hoping that murdering 6 billion people is not a practical option.
LOL - trying to create a protective bubble in this over-automated world is funny.
Computerized pumps? Electric fences? Intercom's? This illusion of safety is as wispy and etheral as a spider's web.
We are just one EMP away from a level playing field. And we party like it's 1899.