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Sitting At The Edge Of The World
By Mark Grant, author of Out of the Box
Sitting at the Edge of the World
“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”
-Anne Rice.
I highly recommend hanging out in Norway at the edge of some fiord to find clarity. The snow capped mountains glisten in the afternoon sun and the blue-green water running through the long scratch marks in the earth brought about by the ice age sparkle with the light reflecting off of the mountain peaks. The air smells like some wintergreen forest high up in the protected positions where the snow does not reach. The sea birds dart this way and that way in the afternoon breeze and one cannot help but smile at the adventure of life. There is nothing else to do actually except smile and ponder the trivialities of man as we pass from the opening gate to the finish line leaving our descendents to take the reins. Yet, while here, we have the opportunity to play in the Great Game and thank what gods you hold dear but, for me, I offer thanks to those that may choose to listen.
One way or another, left or right, the funder or the funded; Greece is going. The situation is just not sustainable and $1.3 trillion in debt is going to be refuted and refuted with consequences that one only hopes the European Union acknowledges and is prepared for past the drivel that they spew out in the Press like Mount Vesuvius throwing up the phlegm of the world on some ashen afternoon in Rome. Sovereign debt, bank debt, municipal debt, $90 billion in derivatives, corporate debt and other obligations of the government left out to dry as Germany reeks with the stench of boars head gone bad. This is about to be the way of it.
The poor, the impoverished, line up for bread and Eurobonds and Berlin frowns and mumbles the appropriate phrases which all equate to the great finality, “We are not going to pay.” It would be amusing, I suppose, if France and the alms seeking nations somehow managed to pass Eurobonds while Germany was left fluttering in the wind and, if they did, one might see the Berliner Bear head back into its cave and if not directed by Frau Merkel then by someone else who would appear on the stage and demand some sort of religious conversion. Do not be mislead by the passage of time. What has been delayed, what has required ever larger amounts of money, has only caused the canker sore to grow in size so that when it bursts it will expel far more fluid that it would have had it been adequately dealt with at inception. Do not for one moment assume that the additional minutes that have transpired will do anything except to make matters worse; do not be fooled by those moments which have come and gone and solved nothing. The Barbarians will soon enough arrive at the gate.
“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend; legend became myth.”
-The Lord of the Rings
As the Prime Minister of Spain publically acknowledged today that he is going to personally ask the ECB to buy the bonds of his nation I note the stirrings of fear and the kind of desperation that was felt just prior to Greece, Ireland, Portugal unveiling their begging bowl and asking the rest of Europe for some type of fiscal porridge that is always served cold and with a certain amount of malice by those that still retain sustenance in their cupboard. If you listen carefully you can hear the tremors in the Spanish voices, the inflections of need, the beginnings of sentences not quite finished. Spain has arrived at the wall; now all that is left is the public announcement. There is no other conclusion now; addition and subtraction are still functioning elements of our grade school educations and the use of them will lead me, you, anyone, to the correct conclusions. The Spanish banks are in the redline, the regional governments are past the point of peril and the Federal government has neither the capital nor the ability to raise the amount of money that is required. In the greatest of Spanish traditions the Prime Minister is engaged in a fight to the death as he tells all who will listen that it is nothing but windmills. Now my steadfast eyes know windmills when I see them and they are not on this Spanish plain or any other plain in this realm for that matter. Let Poncho and Don Miguel pretend to joust with the winds if they must but a pine tree is just that regardless of the name used by those less informed.
It is to be Treasuries to higher prices, risk/credit assets widening against Treasuries. European debt/equities down precipitously and wider and then far wider against their American counterparts. Recession in Europe forthcoming to the American shores. The Euro down against the Dollar and bonds denominated in Euros gaping out against their counterparties in the United States so that “home law” spreads to “home currency” and the lessons learned must be applied one more time. It is to be risk off and then any sort of repellent to keep any sort of risk away. It will be cash and Grant’s Rules 1-10 “Preservation of Capital” that will stand as the golden orbs lighting the way so that keeping what has been obtained will be the mantra and the only mantra during the coming battles with the denizens of the dark as directed by the long ago songs of the sirens wailing about the end of an Empire. What cannot be seen by many will be uncovered once again as the old truths, the old adages, find practical use in the days ahead.
Whether it is the EU running to the G-20, nations in Asia, the IMF or Spain and Italy and their brethren calling for Eurobonds the distinction is easily made; you pay or you pay or you pay because I cannot. That is the cry in the wilderness as politely, very politely, quite politely everyone says, “No thank you.” The curtain is going down on the show and the normal pleas are being made to keep the spectacle in operation but the pocketbooks are closed and Germany and the rest are not going to bet the family farm when the final act draws nigh. The Elves in the boulders cackle and the “invisible people” move on and sigh as the ending of one more chapter is inscribed in the Book of Life.
“May God forgive you for what you've done...
Father, if God has issues, they won't be with what I've done. They will be with what I'm about to do.”
-Dan Brown, Angels and Demons
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When things look bad always smash the precious metals...it's tradition.
BTFDs.
Easy to smash paper. Burn it even.
AU and Ag take Furnace, fire and melting. ;-)
ori
Fed intern : Do you really want to spend $3000 to keep gold under $1600?
Ben Shalom : Screw it....it's just paper money....we can always print more.
>>The poor, the impoverished, line up for bread and Eurobonds and Berlin frowns and mumbles the appropriate phrases which all equate to the great finality, “We are not going to pay.” It would be amusing, I suppose, if France and the alms seeking nations somehow managed to pass Eurobonds while Germany was left fluttering in the wind and, if they did, one might see the Berliner Bear head back into its cave and if not directed by Frau Merkel then by someone else who would appear on the stage and demand some sort of religious conversion.<<
Oh sure, let France and Italy issue "Eurobonds"
and subsequently watch closely how their ambitions melt.
For bonds you need to be credible. France, Italy? You've got to be joking!
There still is no litigation whatsoever in place against corrupt Greek politicians.
So much for reality. Troll home from the edge of the world
and face reality, man, and stop whining.
you don't get it; Eurobonds is to save the banksta ponzi. Merkel says she don't care she has no mandate to do that. The rest of the world shouts : learn to count kunt! But she is deaf when she isn't dumb. So she digs in. And now as we come to the brink, the US lobby and the Club Med, for different reasons, keep singing, "in for a penny in for a beer fest." "Nein, nein, nein, beer fest only for Bavaria. And fuckfest for club-med, but we only come as tourists. Ya, ya, ya, we commenzi as tourists, we vait for your price to go down. Beer is beer Ya! and fukk is fukk, never the two shall mix! "
So, will O'bmmy get elected if beer stays in BAyern and fukk stays in Athens and then flees to Madrid for REAL !?
Kindergarten lesson for Europe:
1. There is no free lunch
2. The parasite needs the host. The host does not need the parasite.
Yesterday 30 bucks. Today already 20 bucks lost...
I guess this is what happens when you see news articles about banks like MS or Goldman saying gold will reach 2000 by years end. The complete opposite happens.
You do not lose anything unless you sell...
but never sell at the bottom...
Gold's sexual repression looks set to turn into a right fuckfest on whatever shorts remain.
Tying together fuckfests and quotes, one of my favorites...
“She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.”
—Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Ironically, possesion of gold may some day become a sensational invitation to make babies.
The politicians will always be politicians and they have a standard method of dealing with any problem they face, use all the means they have (money, lies and deception etc.) to postpone the problem even though it may cause a much bigger damage down the road.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32741.html
Yes they will use all the tools at their disposal; for certain they will lie, deceive, cheat and steal. Whether they have money as one of their weapons is very much open to question. The banksters are the ones who control the money; the central banksters control whatever gold they still have.
The annual gross revenue of Goldman Sachs wouldn't fund federal, state & local government expenditures for 6 days.
The financial sector seeking preferred treatment with the force of government is no better or worse than the defense contractor advocating unnecessary policy, the drug company pushing for a vaccine mandate, a police & prison guard union lobbying to continue the drug war, a contractors union lobbying for an unnecessary sports stadium, a teachers union leaving every child behind for what it can get for its members, big ag campaigning for subsidies, green companies lobbying for crap taxes & subsidies, and on & on.
The out of control albatross kept alive by king $ is in charge & it will do anything to stay alive.
the older i get the more i notice it...the vein of pure graft running throughout the amerikan ekonomy....
in the early days of a Republic i suppose its still possible to say "No" to the $upplicants at the public trough...
NEVER use LOTR as a reference to this screwy world! LOTR is above all that!
Given the struggle between good and evil in LOTR, I find this to be perfectly appropriate. Grant points out that this movement to the edge of calamity was avoidable if history had been used to build wisdom. If wisdom had been used to avoid repeating the disasters of the past. If, if, if,...
What I can't decide is this: is Bernank, Sauron? I think that gives him too much credit. At best he is a Saruman.
Too many Orcs, too few archers. This is the prelude to the end of Tolkien's Third Age. There are dark days ahead.
Does fiat=The One Ring to Rule them all?
You can run to a bank ! You can run out of a bank ! You can't run ON a bank ! Banks don't have back doors ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Sitting On The Edge Of My Toilet Seat Trumpeting The Truth Tour
Too verbose. Please provide a précis of 200 words consisting of paragraphs not more than 3 lines in length. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
I find Mark Grant's writting style really annoying -- he would be much better suited writing for the J. Petterman catalog than he is for a financial blog
The Anne Rice quote at the beginning was worth it, however. I looked it up... an interesting exchange between, I assume, the vampire Lestat and his interviewer... never read the book. http://books.google.com/books?id=P3qdDGhbnfQC&pg=PT466&lpg=PT466&dq=%E2%...
Obviously - it was not Lestat that was interviewed
No? Like I said, never read the book, barely remember seeing the movie (not even sure if I did). The inteviewer was interviewing some othe random vampire?
Lestat was the Tom Cruise character in the film.
Interestingly, in real life Anne Rice (Rule) was an acquaintance of Ted Bundy.
Edit - Actually I've mistakenly conflated two authors I was reading at the same time circa 20 years ago.
Love how the quote is an outlook on true knowledge and wisdom yet gets posted on behalf of alt financial blogs.
True knowledge and wisdom of the kind the great philosphers such as Plato, Aristotle, Hypatia, Aquinas et al sought was so far and away from the day to day oscillations of financial meltdowns that they would be horrified to see what has happened (actually maybe they wouldnt considering their backgrounds in time) let alone God. God couldnt give a flying f about petty greedy western financial systems.
The point is it disspaoints me to see financial bloggers quote true wisdom through that bastardised dark prism of "modern" economics and finance. It seems perverse. Yet at the same time I get why its done - to make sense of the confusion. What I dont like is equating this foremost search for knowledge with disecting fleeting western world financial meltdowns.
The point is it disspaoints me to see financial bloggers quote true wisdom through that bastardised dark prism of "modern" economics and finance. It seems perverse.
Objective truth (which mathematics is a branch of) and the accumulated wisdom of Western thought apply here just as much as they do anywhere else (and perhaps even more acutely). Plus, the developed world financial situation is kind of a big deal right now and will result not just in numbers changing on screens but in major consequences for many millions of people.
Surely there were great crises in the ancient world (to which great wisdom was applied) that seem trite to us in light of what we've come to learn about science and the world.
Don't be such a snob. In this context its actually sophomoric.
The hypocrisy of the "civilized" human species is that during Golden Ages only a handful seek spiritual wisdom, but once the going gets tough, everyone asks for God's mercy...
Well said. We have a saying for that here. Remember God just in the Bad times, never in the good and then say HE never listens to me.
ori
It is cycles of the robber and the producer that last about forty years each, equating one lifetime. That Blue Jay sure looks pretty in nature but he's robbing you eggs while you weren't looking - until you do! More simply it is evolution. Embrace the concept of it and where you are in the cycle or have your eggs stolen. Nothing elequent about it.
Some are born as Blue Jays, some as Finches and some Cardinals. The forty year cycle of the robber is ending, the next few years will be difficult to get into the cycle of the producer but man will go on.
Further in...
“To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost."
So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions.
"An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.” - I will love the collapse of the ponzi scheme.
mc_LDN: The point is it disspaoints (sic) me to see financial bloggers quote true wisdom through that bastardised dark prism of "modern" economics and finance.
granted financial prowess is more fleeting than the fortune of wisdom, but, as with feast, famine and/or war, and the inevitable sackings and lootings, financial sway tracks a civilization's ascent and demise, and impacts the minds and ideas of those living through an upheaval. wisdom is a treasure won after some time in the fire. it would be foolhardy not to reap the hard won truths of hypatia or (the much lesser imo) anne rice, for they have miraculously transformed Time's effects, for the greater good, and have taken lead to produce gold. mark grant's salient links can help lead us through this our own darkening time. it mayn't serve us to arbitarily ignore wisdom on the grounds it's presented in a venue not to our liking or one we've deemed unsuitable.
Still think they "comprimise" and issue like, 3-month ECB bills to swap with sov. credit. The LTRO 3 month loan money resulted in a lot of funds just being parked and it didn't solve the collateral problem for strapped sovereigns with unsexy debt. This would "solve" that problem without going full-metal Euro-bond. Plus, I suppose the project could be abandoned in <= 3 mos. if it turnrd into a big problem politically.
Don't let the sun go down on me..
Mark Grant = LSD
When can I get some Drachma coins?
Soon.....very very soon.
Be sure to buy them with Euros before the Euros defunct.
Edgar Allan Poe Bitchezzz
The system is working exactly as it was designed to and funnelling the public wealth into the hands of the Rothschilds. The only thing that is shattered is the public's naive belief that the financial system is fair and that politicians actually act in the public's best interests. As more and more countriess follow Greece off the cliff this will become very obvious.
Aha! excellent comment . . .
"I am not disappointed with you that you lied to me this time; I am disappointed that I cannot trust you anymore." Friedrich Nietzsche.
This in essence is what has happened to US capitalism as guiding force of the world. Its a damning epitaph and if nothing happens soon to change the nature of things emanating from DC/WS, it means the end of Pax Americana and its domination of the world.
Don Quixote thought he saw monsters, but they were just windmills. Pine trees never entered into it. I thought Grant was literate.
2 years of lies, deception, mistatment of facts, central banks lying to the public, Bernanke, Obama, Biden and Geithner lying to the American people and the show of lies, manipulation and outright fraud is about to end. Why not hold this trash reponsible?
I'm kind of dizzy watching the volume of trade on Netdania this morning. Hundreds of thousands of contracts dumped, 104,000 in just one hour from 10 to 11 AM.
520 million fantasy ounces.
It's all paper games, but it is chilling to watch. A paper blood-bath.
If I had the wherewithal, I'd be buying like a greedy little monkey picking up the bananas.
is your reference to the Barbarians at the Gate referencing the fall of Rome or RJR Nabisco?